


The New Life Job

by Vicky



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicky/pseuds/Vicky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate and Sophie are ready to settle in their new life when Sterling arrives with an offer. Meanwhile, someone from Sophie's past might disrupt everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the 2015 Het Big Bang. It is set post-series and follows my previous two fics, [Nothing will ever stay the same](http://archiveofourown.org/works/688170) and [It's only the beginning of something new](http://archiveofourown.org/works/754749), but can be read a stand-alone. Many thanks to azarsuerte for the beautiful art she made to go with this fic! And thanks to my beta, silecet!

_Chapter One_

 

There was something so final about an entirely packed apartment.

It wasn't that Sophie Devereaux wasn't used to moving around a lot; it was actually quite the opposite. In her line of work, she was used to leaving at a moment's notice. But this time, it was entirely different. She wasn’t moving to flee from the authorities or insurance company investigators nor was she moving onto another job.

This part of her life was over. She was leaving it all behind as she was leaving Portland, and that was fine with her.

She had always known that being a grifter and a thief came with a time limit. Despite what some people might think, you couldn't keep this lifestyle forever. There was a moment where you had to retire from the job, and for Sophie, this moment had come.

She might have never thought it would come so soon, but it felt right nonetheless: she had Nate and she had found a place where she belonged. It was right to leave the rest behind now, even if it meant not seeing Parker, Hardison and Eliot everyday from now on. She would miss the family she had chosen, but it was time to move on.

Sophie contemplated the boxes that littered Nate's apartment; their whole life was there. She had let go of her own apartment a few days ago, and her boxes had found their way here, waiting for the movers to come get them once they found a place to live. Nate's boat was also all ready to make the trip as soon as he found a spot in a marina. It might take some time, but they would soon make a new life for themselves in a new city, away from Portland.

She felt two arms come around her waist from behind and smiled. Nate's lips pressed a kiss on her shoulder before he rested his cheek against hers. She crossed her arms over his and intertwined their fingers, their wedding bands resting against one another.

"You ok?" he asked softly.

"Yeah. I'm just feeling a bit nostalgic. It's nothing to be worried about."

"We can still go back on our plans, if you want to."

It wasn't the first time Nate was offering her a way out, but each time Sophie’s answer had remained the same. And even now, she knew she couldn't go back to the job; she didn't want to. She knew why Nate was doing that; he probably felt like he had made the choice for her, as he had so often done when on a job, and he was trying to let her be in control of the situation. But she was sure of her decision, and it was time to put a stop to her husband's doubts once and for all.

Sophie turned around in his embrace, and raised her arms to wrap them around his neck. She resisted the urge she had to bring his head down to hers and kiss him. She knew that, if she did, they wouldn't stop there; they were still in that honeymoon phase, and as much as she wanted more than a kiss, they didn't have time. Instead, she looked at him straight in the eyes.

"This is my choice, Nate. I chose to marry you and leave this life of ours behind. I'm happy, and I won't change my mind, so stop asking, alright?"

"Alright. I just thought I should check one last time before we leave for good."

Nate leaned down to capture her lips with his. If Sophie had hoped that he would have more willpower than she did, she was soon proven wrong. One of his hands tangled in her hair while the other roamed down her back and found the hem of her shirt. His thumb sneaked underneath the shirt and started running circles on the small of her back, raising goose bumps on her skin. Her hands – the traitors – had grabbed his head and were holding him into place.

"Nate," she whispered against his lips. "We don't have time. And we don't even have a bed anymore," she added as an afterthought.

"That never stopped us before," he replied with a chuckle.

"Nate..."

"I know, I know."

He thankfully took a step backwards, his hands leaving her body. As much as they both wanted this, they would soon have to leave for the airport if they wanted to make their flight. They both checked their clothes – and when did Nate learn to unhook a bra through clothing? – and she opened her carry on and grabbed her brush. He had managed to completely mess her hair up and if she didn't fix it before leaving, people would know what they had been up too.

"Are you sure you have everything you need?"

As he was asking that, Nate pointed at the three suitcases Sophie would be taking with her on the plane. There was sarcasm in his voice, and she chose not to dignify it with an answer; maybe he could put everything he needed into one suitcase, but she wasn’t like that. And neither of them had any idea of how long it would take them to find a new place to live and have their things brought there. She'd rather be ready for any eventuality.

"The others aren't back yet?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

If they were back, they would be here with them, she was sure of that; they wouldn’t let them leave without saying goodbye.

Neither Nate nor Sophie blamed them for their absence; they had known it could happen. But when Parker, Eliot and Hardison had first started the job a couple of weeks ago, none of them had thought it would take them this long to finish it. It had been a matter of days at first, but things got complicated, so much that Nate and Sophie had offered their help. The younger members of the team had refused; they didn’t to burden the couple with this con when they had to get ready for their move across the country.

"Our cab will be here in five minutes," Nate said, checking the time on his watch. "We should probably take another look around to make sure we haven't forgotten anything."

Sophie nodded and followed him around the apartment. As they checked everything one last time, they were both remembering the months they had spent in Portland and in this apartment. After the back rooms of the brew pub, Nate's place was where Sophie spent most of her time. She had barely seen the inside of her own apartment in the past few months, as it felt more natural to stay here with him.

When they couldn't delay their leaving anymore, Nate took his and Sophie's suitcases and carried them outside. She grabbed her carry on and followed him out of the apartment. He closed and locked the door behind them; on their way to the airport, they would stop by the brew pub to leave the keys for the team, just in case. Not that any of them really needed them, but Nate would rather have them use the keys than pick the lock.

The cab was just pulling up outside when they exited Nate's building. The driver got out of his car and placed the suitcases in the trunk for them, before going to take his place back behind the wheel. Nate opened the back door for Sophie, and just before she climbed inside, she turned around. She looked up towards Nate's apartment one last time, and when she lowered her head, his eyes were on her. They smiled at each other before she leaned in to peck his lips. She took his hand and didn't release it as they climbed into the cab and drove away.

 

###

 

The ride to the airport was uneventful and didn't take them long; they arrived a good two hours before their flight was supposed to take off. Check-in took a bit more time, with Sophie having to pay a fee for the extra luggage she was taking with her. Nate did his best to hide his smirk, but she saw it anyway and narrowed her eyes at him. He had wanted to offer to pay for her, but he knew better after he made fun of it not once but twice.

Once they made their way through the security checkpoint, they walked towards the private, First Class Lounge they had access to. They still had an hour to kill before boarding started for their flight, and they would rather wait here than on some uncomfortable chairs a few feet away from their boarding gate. They sat on a couch, Sophie leaning against Nate's side, and were about to call someone to order their complementary drinks, when glasses were placed on the table before them.

They raised their eyes to see Parker, Eliot and Hardison standing there, smiling.

Sophie was the first to react and she jumped to her feet. But before she could do or say anything, Parker had already engulfed her in a hug. Hugs from Parker were rare; the young thief still tended to avoid touching other people, even though she became better at it in the past couple of years. Her relationship with Hardison had helped with that, just like being in the team had helped her open up.

"We thought we were going to be late," Parker said when she finally pulled back.

"We finished the job early this morning, and we set out straight after," Hardison explained.

"It went well?" Nate asked; he and Sophie might not be in the team anymore, but it didn't mean he had to stop worrying.

"We caught the bad guy, if that's what you're asking," Eliot replied.

It hadn't exactly answered his question, but Nate let it go. He couldn't see any evidence of them being hurt, and he didn't need to know the details of the cons anymore. He trusted the team to tell them if there was a problem.

But for the moment, he was just glad they were able to make it to the airport. He didn't want to know how they had gotten past security and into the private lounge – although Parker's flight attendant outfit was a good clue – the important thing was that they were here.

The five of them sat down, with Parker on Sophie's other side and Eliot and Hardison on the couch facing them.

"We're glad you could make it," Sophie said; they might have made their peace with not seeing the team before leaving, but they were still happy to see them here.

"Well, we may have pushed the van a little over the speed limit to be there on time," Parker admitted and Hardison glared at her.

"I'm never letting you drive Lucille 4.0 ever again. This woman is crazy behind a wheel."

"Not just behind a wheel," Eliot muttered, although it was more out of habit than anything else.

"Don't laugh, Nate," Hardison continued when he saw the former team leader smile. "Have you ever seen Sophie drive? Because if you haven't, trust me when I say that she's no better than Parker."

"She learned from a taxi driver in Istanbul," Nate replied simply, looking at Sophie.

"Is there anything you don't know about her?" Hardison said, shaking his head.

"Oh, I still have plenty of secrets, don't worry," Sophie said, winking at him.

Eliot shook his head at the Grifter's antics. She would never change, but then, none of them would want her to, and especially not Nate. The Hitter suspected that her behaviour was what had attracted him to Sophie in the beginning. Well, that, and the mystery surrounding her: the Mastermind would never pass a good one.

While still paying attention to the conversation going on around him just in case he was asked to participate, Eliot turned his thoughts towards Nate. If there was one person who had really changed in the past five years, it was certainly him. There were still traces of the man who Dubenich had asked to lead the team, but he was finally at peace. He was still drinking, but less than before. He would never really stop, not even for Sophie, but she had accepted him this way.

Together, they had changed Nate, there was no doubt about that. And in turn, he had changed them too. He had given them a mission, a reason to justify them stealing and conning. Not that either of them had needed one before, but he had changed that too. And even though they had tried, they couldn't go back to what they were before. They had to keep going with their new way of life, because this was who they were now.

"What about you, Eliot?" Sophie asked, jolting him out of his thoughts.

"What about me?" he replied.

He knew what she wanted to know; he hadn't tuned the conversation out. He had just hoped that she would leave him out of it. It wasn't a question he wanted to answer. 

"When will you find yourself a nice girl?" she asked as he expected.

He grunted and shrugged, hoping that it would be enough for the Grifter. And she surprised him when she didn't say anything else, but accepted his answer. When he looked at her in the eyes, he saw that it was only a question of time before she asked him again. But knowing her like he did, she probably already knew the answer; there had ever been only one person he was ready to settle down for, and he had blown it up.

The conversation moved onto other subjects, but they all avoided talking about what brought them all here: Nate and Sophie's imminent departure. Now that it was so close, neither of them wanted to revisit the topic.

They say that time flies when you are with friends. And indeed, when the boarding was announced for Nate and Sophie's flight, it seemed to them that Parker, Hardison and Eliot had only just arrived.

"Well, it looks like this is it," Parker said.

Sophie squeezed the younger woman's hand before getting up from the couch. Eliot, being a gentleman, took Sophie's carry-on, and the team followed the couple towards the flight attendants waiting for the first class passengers.

Nate and Sophie stopped just before the door and turned back to face their three friends. They stayed silent, looking at each other, until they couldn't delay it anymore.

"Have a safe flight," Eliot said.

"And call us when you land," Hardison added.

"Are you telling us you won't monitor our flight to make sure everything's fine?" Sophie asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course, I will. But just, call us anyway, alright?"

"We will," Nate assured him.

Parker was the only one who hadn’t said anything, and when they turned towards her, they could see that she was barely holding back her tears.

"I'm still ok with you leaving," she said, not wanting them to think that she had changed her mind. "I'm just… sad."

"Come here, girl," Hardison whispered, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and tugging her against him.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of them," Eliot said, renewing the promise he had made a couple of months before in the back rooms of the brew pub.

"Call us whenever you want," Nate reminded them. "We're just one plane ride away, if you ever need our help."

They didn't say goodbye. They couldn't.

When they had no other choice but to go, Sophie took her carry-on from Eliot. Her free hand found Nate's, and after sharing one last look with the team, they turned away and left.

It wasn't until they were in their seats that Sophie finally allowed a few tears to escape her eyes.

"You ok?" Nate asked her, squeezing her hand.

"Yeah. It's just… I'm going to miss them."

"I'm going to miss them too," he replied, kissing her temple.

 

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2  
_

They didn't go straight to their hotel. Instead, Nate asked their driver to take them somewhere else first. Once there, he helped Sophie out of the cab.

Sophie threaded her arm through his as they stood on the sidewalk, and looked at the view before them.

"We're standing on Broadway," she said.

Her eyes looked from one billboard to the next, each of them displaying a different show in one of the many Broadway theatres. It wasn't the first time she had stood there: she had come here before, and she had dreamt of seeing her name displayed on one of the billboards. The actress in her had always thought big.

But this time, she was seeing it differently. Now that she had realised that her place in a theatre wasn't as an actress but as a stage director, her thoughts went a different way that the previous times she had been there.

Sophie didn't dream of seeing her name up there anymore; she just wished that one day, she would be lucky enough to have one of her productions displayed on one of those billboards. She would do her best to see it happen.

"Do you think New York is ready for us?" she asked Nate, her eyes finally finding his.

"It'd better be," he replied.

She smiled, and leaned up to peck his lips. When she pulled away, she had that look on her face that Nate knew all too well. Before Sophie even opened her mouth to talk, he knew what she was going to say.

"Why don't we go to our hotel?" she said, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear.

Although she’d voiced it as a suggestion, Nate knew better than to take it as such. He wrapped an arm around her waist and they walked towards the cab that had been waiting for them. Their driver, having seen them come back, had gotten out of the car and was holding the door open for them. Nate would make sure to remember to tip him generously once they arrived at their hotel.

 

###

 

He couldn’t believe it.

She was right here, on the opposite sidewalk. He could only see her profile, but he knew it was her. In all those years, he had never been able to forget her face. He had thought about her every day, since the day she ran away without so much as a goodbye.

He had been told many times to just live his life and forget about her. Live his life he did, but he couldn’t forget her; she had left an imprint on his heart, one that he couldn’t just make disappear.

But he still never sought her out. He had understood that searching her would be pointless; she had wanted to disappear, and he had been certain she had covered her traces.

He had never thought he would ever see her again, and yet, there she was. If he was one to believe in fate, he would have said that it placed them both here in New York, in this street, on this day.

But there was no such thing as fate.

He had no idea who her companion was, but they were intimate. One look at their hands told him that they were married. He couldn’t help but feel jealous, even though he had no right to be; she wasn’t the woman he had known anymore.

They turned and walked back to their cab, and, for a second, he was tempted to just let her go and finally forget about her. Now that he had seen her, that he knew she was fine, maybe it was time to let go of the past. But having seen her again just made him want to hold onto her.

Keeping an eye on them, he hailed a cab. One was quick to stop before him, as if it had been waiting for him to make up his mind.

“Follow this cab, please,” he said, as he climbed inside. “I never thought I’d ever say that,” he added under his breath.

To his credit, the driver didn’t ask what was going on; he wasn’t sure he could have given an answer if he were asked.

Despite the rush hour traffic, they never lost sight of the other cab, so when it stopped before a hotel, his cab was right behind it. He paid the driver, leaving a very generous tip – it was the least he could do –, but waited until the couple was inside to get out.

He didn’t go inside right away. Instead he weighed his options once again: he could still go away, forget that he had seen her and go back to his life. Or he could go inside and talk to her, ask her everything he had ever wanted to.

He was torn, but his desire to see her again won, and he finally walked inside. He spotted them just as they walked away from the reception desk and towards the elevators. He was about to run in her direction and call out her name, but, again, he stopped himself.

He didn’t know her anymore; it would be better if he learned who she was before confronting her.

He watched as the elevator doors closed on her, determined that it wouldn’t be the last time he ever saw her face.

 

###

 

Sophie released the breath she didn’t realise she was holding as the elevator doors closed.

“Are you alright?” Nate asked, worried.

“Yes, it’s just… Up until now, I felt like I was being watched. I’m sure it’s nothing,” she was quick to reassure him.

Nate wasn’t so sure himself; he trusted Sophie’s instincts and, if she said that someone had been watching her, he believed her. Once they were settled, he would call Hardison and ask him to hack into the hotel’s video surveillance. He’d rather be safe than sorry; they had made enough enemies in the past five years to last them a lifetime, after all.

The elevator stopped on their floor and they exited the cabin. They followed the bellhop towards their suite where he opened the door.

“After you,” the bellhop said.

Nate and Sophie walked inside, and stopped, taken aback by what they were seeing. Nate reacted first, and turned towards the younger man who was about to take their luggage inside the room.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said, taking the suitcases from him. Nate closed the door, not without giving a generous tip, before the bellhop could react. He turned back and walked into the living room. “Sterling.”

“How did you find us?” Sophie asked, now that she had time to get over the fact that he had been waiting for them.

“I have my ways,” Sterling simply replied.

“Whatever you think we have done, it wasn’t us,” she said. “We’ve just spent several hours on an airplane with hundreds of other passengers.”

“And yet, I still think that you know how to be in different places at the same time.” Sterling paused, letting that sink in, before he continued. “But I’m not here for anything you have done. After all, you’ve retired, haven’t you?” he asked, rhetorically.

“So what do you want?” Nate asked, having stayed silent until now; he did enjoy Sterling and Sophie bantering. “I don’t think that you’re the welcoming committee.”

“I’m now operating from New York…”

“And of course, it’s just a coincidence that we’ve moved here,” Sophie interrupted him. A thought came to the front of her mind, and she turned towards Nate. “Tell me you have nothing to do with it. Tell me it’s not part of one of your plans.”

“It’s not. And _you_ chose New York, do I need to remind you?”

“I know all about your mind games, Nathan Ford, and I wouldn’t put it past you to…”

“It all stopped in Portland, with the Black File, I promise,” he hastily said. “No more plans.”

Sophie looked straight at him, narrowing her eyes and trying to decide whether he was telling the truth. When she was convinced enough that Sterling’s presence in their hotel room had nothing to do with her husband, she turned back to the Interpol agent.

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted,” Sterling started, looking at Sophie, “my offices are now in New York, and, as strange as it may sound to you, it was planned this way _before_ I found out that you were coming here to enjoy your retirement.”

“Let’s say we believe you on this part, what are you doing here?” Nate asked.

“I came to renew my offer.”

“To work with you,” Nate added.

“ _For_ me. I figured that now you’re done with your little vendetta, you might be interested in coming back to the light side.”

Sophie wanted to scoff at his words. For her, there was no right or wrong side or, as Sterling put it, light or dark side. There were thieves and cops – in this case, insurance investigators – but life wasn’t black and white and their team had proved it more than once.

She stopped herself before she could say anything. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t take pleasure in correcting Sterling, but she knew that it would be useless. That, and he knew about every job they had taken, everything they had stolen in the past few years.

Nate seriously considered Sterling’s offer for a couple of seconds; he liked what they did, helping people in their own way, but working with – _for_ – Sterling would be different. They would constantly be in competition against each other, neither ready to give the other the upper hand.

(And he liked that, really. As much as he liked opposing Sterling, he also liked working side by side with him. They challenged each other.)

He was tempted to accept, and, if he was honest, had he been alone, he would have. The thrill of the chase was still there, and it would probably never leave. But there was Sophie to consider, and he wouldn’t make a decision without consulting her first. Not anymore.

Nate opened his mouth to reply negatively when his wife spoke first.

“Is this offer only for Nate or does it include me, too?”

Sterling could usually boast about having all the options covered, but _even he_ hadn’t seen it coming. And from the look on Nate's face, neither had he. Alright, he did include her in his previous offer, but he didn’t think that she would bring it up. It was, after all, kind of surprising that Sophie would want to work for one of the two men who pursued her for years.

( _But then, she did marry the other one,_ Sterling reasoned. He had stopped trying to understand the woman – or the relationship between the two – a long time ago. It was impossible to understand a person whose real name you still didn’t know. And it wasn’t for lack of trying.)

"Whatever you want," Sterling replied after a moment of silence.

He knew that Sophie could be an invaluable asset, just like Nate was, and that was why he had told Nate that she was welcomed too after the _Ma Mystère_ case. He had seen them work together and, truth be told, he was almost certain that having the two of them work for him would be better than just Nate. _Almost_ ; he knew the grifter just enough to be sure that she would bring trouble from time to time. He held back a smile as he realised that he looked forward to it.

“Take your time thinking about it. Both of you,” he added, looking towards Sophie. “Be seeing you.”

Sterling left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving the couple alone.

“I think I’ll take a shower, now, and then, we can go out,” Sophie said.

“You… you want to work with Sterling?” Nate said, ignoring her last comment.

“Why not?” she replied, shrugging. “It might be fun.”

She was right, of course, it should be fun to work with Sterling. Back at IYS, before everything changed, he and Nate did make a great team. They had a sort of friendly rivalry, and would team up on some of the bigger cases.

Nate wouldn’t mind having that back, even though things were much different now. He had spent the past five years on the other side of the law, and he didn’t mind using illegal methods to get what he wanted. Neither did Sophie. But, for some reason, he was pretty sure that Sterling was looking exactly for that.

He and Sophie would need to have a serious talk about it, although Nate already knew what answer they would give Sterling. It was too tempting.

“You coming?” Sophie asked, jolting him out of his thoughts.

“Uh?”

Nate turned towards her and saw her looking over her shoulder from the bathroom threshold. Her _naked_ shoulder. He let his eyes travel down her very naked body before coming back up to her face.

“Shower. Now,” she said, disappearing inside.

It didn’t take long for Nate to forget all about Sterling and join her.

 

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3  
_

Flirting with the desk clerk hadn’t worked. But then, he had been told many times that he wasn’t good at flirting. The truth was, he hadn’t really thought that he would be able to get information about her this way. He had to try, though.

Now, he had to find another way. He couldn't just hang out in the hotel lobby and wait for her to come back down. Someone was bound to notice him and ask him what he was doing here. If that were to happen, he wouldn't know how to answer them. Or worse, if he did tell his story, they might call her and ask her to confirm it, and he didn't want that. He wanted to confront her when he was ready to, and on his own terms.

He had to leave, he knew that; it would be safer for him to. He just felt like it would be a step back if he did.

Sighing, he looked one last time at the elevator doors and turned away. He walked out of the hotel, away from her, for the time being. He would come back later; he wouldn't give up.

He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, unsure of what to do. He wasn’t expected at work – the reason why he was this side of the Atlantic – until the next day, and he didn’t feel like going to his hotel just yet. If he had to spend time at a hotel, he’d rather it’d be the one he was standing in front of right now.

Feeling the need to talk to someone about it, he took his cell out of his pocket but, before he had a chance to even unlock it, he saw _them_ walking out of the hotel. It looked like luck hadn’t deserted him yet.

Even though they weren’t looking in his direction, he still took a couple of steps back. _Better be safe than sorry,_ he thought. He saw a porter hail a cab for them and he did the same, already planning to follow them again. He had never done it before today, and now, he would do it twice in as many hours.

His cab stopped at about the same time as theirs, and he made sure to hide his face from them just in case they looked in his direction; her husband wouldn’t recognize him, but she would, even after all these years.

“Where to, sir?” the driver asked as soon as he was seated.

“Could you follow this cab, please?” he asked, pointing towards the car that was pulling out of the curb.

“Are you a cop?” the driver replied and he understood that it wouldn’t be as easy as earlier.

“I’ll double the fare if you follow it.”

“You should have started with that, kind sir.”

He stopped himself from rolling his eyes, knowing that the driver would see it in the rear-view mirror. He kept his eyes on the cab before them, and he hoped that they wouldn’t lose it in the heavy late afternoon traffic.

 

###

 

“Are we really considering working with Sterling?” Nate asked.

They were lying on the bed, resting after an _intense_ shower and he _had to_ choose that moment to bring up the subject.

Sophie chuckled; it didn’t even surprise her anymore that, after such an exhausting moment, Nate’s mind still wasn’t shutting down. She should have seen the question coming but she, contrary to her husband, was enjoying the moment.

(It wasn’t entirely fair. Nate was enjoying the moment, too. It was just that his mind tended to wander when he had nothing else to do but think.)

“I’d rather we don’t talk about Sterling while in bed, if you don’t mind,” Sophie said.

“Right. You’re right,” Nate replied. “Good idea. Where are you going?” he asked when she got up.

“I said that we wouldn’t talk about it in bed, but I never said that we wouldn’t talk about it _at all_.”

Sophie grabbed her clothes from her suitcase, and threw his at Nate. It wasn’t until she sent him a pointed look that he finally started dressing.

“So, about the job offer,” Sophie started. “What do you think?”

“I’m thinking that it wouldn’t be easy, working with Sterling.”

"That you can say," Sophie said, scoffing. "He'll want to boss us around, have a say in everything we want to do. But..." she added, having sensed it coming.

"But nothing," Nate replied. "We're done with this life. If we had wanted to continue, we wouldn't have left the team, right?"

Sophie wasn't buying it and he knew it. Although he was right and they had thought that this part of their life was over, she knew that he was tempted to accept Sterling's offer. The only reason he hadn't done so yet was Sophie herself.

She couldn't say that she would be thrilled to work with Sterling. (With, not for; it was something they would have to clear up straight away, if they were to take the job.) But, like she had told Nate earlier, she had no doubt that it would prove to be fun. She was already looking forward to play games on him.

There was also the fact that, while Nate was happy with the life they had now, there would come a point where he would become bored. And it was only natural. He needed to be stimulated, to form plans. They both knew it, and Sterling did too. She would hate to see Nate settle for a life that would be too quiet for him.

If she were honest with herself, she needed the excitement, too. She would be fine for a while, but she was too used to running around, conning people – not stealing, she wasn't a thief anymore, thank you very much – to be happy to stay in one place for the rest of her life.

They would just end up resenting each other for this choice, and it was something Sophie didn't want to happen. They were finally at a good place, together, and she didn't want to ruin everything by making a bad choice.

"Why don't we try it for a while?" Sophie asked, having made up her mind. "If we don't like it, or if Sterling is just too much of a prick, which he will probably be, knowing him," she muttered, and Nate chuckled, "well, we can still quit."

"Do you really want to do this?" he asked, offering her a way out, even though she wouldn't take it.

"Yes. Just think of what you and Sterling could do, together. You two may not be able to outsmart each other, but others are no match against you. Add me to the equation, and we'll be unstoppable," she finished with a smile.

"You might be onto something, here."

He went silent for a while. Sophie could almost see the cogs turning in his head; he was analysing the situation, as he always did before agreeing to do a job. Nate was thinking of all the ways that this could go wrong - and with Sterling, that was a lot - and he started coming up with plans, in his head.

"Nate," Sophie said, calling for his attention; she wanted to give him something else to think about, something neither of them had mentioned yet. "I think that, although we're done with our life of thievery, neither of us are done with catching bad guys. You love doing it, it's a big part of you. And I have to say that I enjoy it, too."

"So you're ready to do this? To work for a man and an organisation who tried to arrest you, multiple times?"

"Well, I married you, so..."

Nate smiled at her, admitting that she had a point.

They were going to do it. They were going to work for Sterling. But Nate would make things clear from the beginning: they would walk away if it wasn't working out for them, and Sterling wouldn't have a word in it. It wouldn't be a full time job for them, either. After all, Nate did make other plans for them when they chose to live here in New York.

A plan that he would have to reveal to Sophie, now. He didn't think she would be upset when he told her. At least, he didn't think she would have a reason to. He hoped that he would be right on that; he really didn't want to start their marriage by having her angry at him because he kept yet another secret from her.

(It didn't even occur to him that he did promise that there would be no more secrets between them, and that she would have all the rights to be angry.)

"What do you say about taking a walk?" Nate asked, the previous subject forgotten for the moment.

"Well, I had other plans for our afternoon...," she said, seductively, running her hands up and down his arms. "But I guess we can still reschedule. Where do you want to go?"

For a minute, Nate was almost tempted to forget all about his plans and go with her suggestion for an afternoon spent right here, in their hotel room. But then, she let her arms fall to her side, and he was able to refocus on his surprise. He cleared his throat, much to her delight; she had managed to get him flustered.

"That's for me to know. You will just have to wait to find out," he replied, pecking her lips.

"Nathan Ford, what have you done, now?"

"Why do you assume that I've done anything?"

Sophie didn't say anything in reply; she just raised an eyebrow at him. She knew him, and she had reason enough to believe that he was hiding something from her. He had that glint in his eyes that she had seen quite often during their cons. It had never bode well for their marks, and she had always enjoyed it.

But today, she was on the other end of it, and it upset her. She felt like she was the mark, this time, and she wasn't used to him making plans about her; it had never happened before.

(Well, it wasn't true. When he was an insurance investigator, she was certain that he had made hundreds of plans to catch her. And now that she knew first hand just how good he was, she understood that he had never really made a serious attempt at stopping her before.)

"Alright, let's go," she finally said, putting on her shoes.

With a smile, Nate put on his own shoes and helped her with her jacket before grabbing his. He took Sophie's hand and led her out of the room and down to the lobby.

Once outside, he gestured for the doorman to hail them a cab.

"I thought you said something about 'taking a walk'?" Sophie asked.

"It's a bit too far to be walking from here. Especially in these shoes," he added, looking down at her feet.

"It's always about shoes with you, isn't it?" she replied, thinking about the time he had been able to find her thanks to the shoes that she had been wearing.

A cab stopped before them, and the doorman held the door open for them.

As she got inside, Sophie once more felt like she was being watched. She dismissed the feeling this time; she was now certain that it was one of Sterling's minions, just like it must have been too, earlier in the lobby. He must have them followed, just in case.

Nate gave the driver directions, but it wasn't an address that Sophie recognized. She said nothing about it, though, having as much faith in her husband as he had in her.

"It'd better be good," she still warned him.

His only answer was a kiss to her temple.

 

###

 

In the beginning, none of them had thought they were going to stay in Portland. The only reason they had ended up here in the first place had been Nate and his plan to get hold of the Black File. It would have made sense for Parker, Hardison and Eliot to leave now that they had it in their hands, and Nate and Sophie had moved on with their lives.

But Hardison had reasoned that they had the Brew Pub to consider. They weren’t burned in the area, either; much to their surprise, Sterling had chosen to just forget everything that had happened in Highpoint Tower. It didn’t take much to convince Eliot and Parker that Portland was still a viable option for them, and the Hacker had quickly found them new clients to help.

“You’ve already scheduled an appointment with a new client?” Eliot asked as Hardison parked the van in the back alley of the Brew Pub. “We’ve just finished a job. I thought we agreed that we would take some time in between jobs, for the moment?

“I know, I know. But this one is pretty urgent. We don’t have much time to work on it as it is.”

“Hardison has already told me about it,” Parker added. “I agreed with him that we had to take it. It’s an orphanage, Eliot. They’re going to close and the kids will be sent to other Homes all over the state if we don’t do anything to help them.”

“Fine,” Eliot relented. “But once we’re done, we’re taking a week off. I have to work on a new menu for the pub.”

“Deal,” Hardison replied.

Just like Parker and Hardison, Eliot had a soft spot when it came to children. He knew that it was even more important for his two friends, given their childhood. They just couldn’t say no when it came to children’s well-beings. And neither could he.

“Alright. So, at what time should we expect our new client?” Eliot asked, opening the door that led to the back rooms and their headquarters.

“Actually, she should already be waiting for us inside,” Hardison answered, looking anywhere but at his friends.

“Dammit Hardison!”

“How was I to know that it would take us this long to come back from the airport?”

The two men looked at Parker who had her arms full of shopping bags coming from a dozen different places.

“What? I just thought that we should thank Amy for looking after the pub for us.”

Eliot and Hardison knew better than to say anything about this; it was just Parker’s way of opening up to other people, something that she had always had trouble doing. But thanks to Sophie’s help, she was getting better at it.

And Amy did need to be thanked, Parker was right about that. She always took great care of the pub whenever the team had a job that took them out of town. She might not know exactly what they were doing, but she knew enough from having helped Parker once, and unexpectedly becoming her client. She was one of a few outsiders to their world that they trusted.

“And really, we would have been there sooner, if you had let me drive.”

“No, no, no,” Hardison replied. “From now on, there are only two occurrences where you’re allowed to drive, babe. One, if we need to leave really fast. Two, if both Eliot and I are incapacitated.”

And even then, Eliot thought that he would still find enough strength to drive; that would be better than the alternative.

Parker pouted at Hardison’s words, but didn’t protest.

They entered their headquarters, and she dropped the bags unceremoniously near the door.

“Anything we should know about our new client?” Eliot asked.

“Meet Madeleine Wright,” Hardison said, displaying her picture on the screen. “She’s the head of the Hope for Children Home, just outside of Portland. They rent the house, and their landlord has just sold the property. It wouldn’t be a problem if the new owner hadn’t decided to evict them and tear down the place to build a parking garage in its stead.”

“Is he allowed to do that?” Parker asked.

“First, the new owner is this company, I.S.B. Limited. I don’t have much on it. It seems legit, though I can’t find who’s behind it. It appeared a couple of years ago, and the CEO, and sole shareholder, chooses to remain anonymous. And by that, I mean that even _I_ have found zilch about them. I don’t even know their name, and that just never happens. Ever,” he added, to make sure that his friends understood that he was serious. “Now, about tearing down the house, he’s allowed to do so because the former landlord _forgot_ to add a clause about it in the contract.”

“Do you mean that it might have been intentional?”

“Maybe, I don’t know,” Hardison answered Parker.

“We’ll have to talk to him,” Eliot said, fisting his hands, and the others nodded.

“So this company can do whatever they want and put children of the streets?” Parker said.

“Legally, yes.”

“If they’re in their right, what do you want us to do, Hardison?” the Hitter asked.

“Like I said, I.S.B. _seems_ legit. At first glance. And second. And third. Someone trying to find dirt on them would come up empty handed.”

“What are you saying? It’s _too_ clean?”

“Exactly,” Hardison answered Eliot. “Let’s face it, everyone has their pile of dirt, be it a small one or a big one. But I.S.B. has nothing at all. I tell you, there’s something fishy here.”

“Alright, let’s do this,” Parker said. “Eliot and I are going to meet with our client. Hardison, can you monitor everything from here?”

“Why am I always the one left behind, either in the van or here?” he complained.

“Age of the Geek, bro. Age of the Geek,” Eliot said as he opened the door for Parker.

They walked to the front of the pub, and almost collided into Amy who was going to the kitchens.

“Oh hey, guys,” the waitress said. “How was your trip?”

“It was fine. Thank you,” Parker replied. “I brought a couple of things back for you,” she added, and Eliot snorted when she said ‘couple’. “I’ll give them to you later.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have, Parker. Thank you,” Amy said, visibly touched by the attention. “By the way, I think someone is waiting for you,” she pointed to a woman sitting alone at a table.

“She is. Thanks, Amy,” Eliot said.

“Do you need anything?” Amy asked.

“We’ll be fine,” Parker assured her.

Amy walked away, and they were left alone to observe Madeleine Wright. She looked exactly like on the photo Hardison had just shown them, except for the dark circles underneath her eyes. It was obvious that she wasn’t getting enough sleep these days, worrying about the children’s future. She was also fidgety and kept looking around, hoping to spot them.

Deciding to finally put her out of her misery, they walked towards her. She immediately noticed them and relaxed; the wait was over.

“Mrs. Wright? I’m Parker and this is Eliot.”

“Madeleine… Maddie,” she corrected herself, shaking their extended hands. “Thank you for seeing me. It’s a… It’s already a relief to know that someone is willing to help. Although, I’m not sure that you can do anything about all this. I’ve talked to a lawyer, and there’s nothing to be done. The contract is airtight. Not to mention that I don’t know how I could possibly pay you.”

“Don’t worry about the money. We have alternative sources of revenue,” Eliot said.

“As for how to save the orphanage, that’s what we do. Corporation like I.SB. who use their money and their power against innocent people, we stop them on a regular basis. We provide… leverage,” Parker finished, with a glint in her eyes that reminded Eliot of Nate.

 

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

 

"Where are we?" Sophie asked, as Nate offered her his hand to help her out of the cab.

Instead of answering, he led her towards a small building. They stopped in front of the door, and Sophie looked around, still trying to determine where her husband had taken her. But there was no indication; the sign had been taken down a long time ago, and the buildings on either side were of no help, either. They were typical buildings for this part of Manhattan, with shops on the ground floors, and apartments on the other floors.

It was the building they were standing in front of that was standing out from the others: there were no shops, and it didn’t look like people were living there. But the building didn’t seem abandoned, either. It was quite the opposite, actually; there was a fresh layer of paint on the façade and the door looked brand new.

She was still at a loss, though; she had no idea why they were here.

“Nate, will you finally tell me what we are doing here?”

“In a minute.”

Sophie narrowed her eyes at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Still, she saw a small smile play on his lips: he enjoyed frustrating her. Well, two could play that game; one day soon, maybe even tonight, she would have her fun in frustrating him, too. Something told her that he would have infinitely less patience than her.

Still holding onto her hand, Nate walked towards the door and knocked. It didn’t take long to open, revealing an older man. He smiled at Sophie before turning his eyes on Nate.

“Mr Ford, we finally meet face to face,” the old man said, shaking Nate’s hand. “Mrs. Ford, I’m very pleased to meet you. Or is it Ms Devereaux?” he asked, bending down slightly to kiss her hand.

“Mrs. Ford is fine, thank you,” she said.

She was more than a little surprised that this man seemed to know her, when she had never seen him before. She turned towards Nate, a question in her eyes, but he was avoiding her gaze; this didn’t reassure her, quite the contrary. She did trust Nate with her life, but it didn’t mean that she was ready to follow him anywhere without knowing a single thing. Well, not anymore at the very least.

“Here are the keys, Mr Ford. I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

“Thank you, Henry,” Nate said, taking the keys the man was holding out for him. “Come on, Soph.”

Nate led Sophie through the door and down the corridor. There were still no clue for Sophie to determine where they were, but, as they neared a door, she knew that she wouldn’t have much longer to wait.

They stopped before the door, and Nate put his hand on the doorknob. Instead of opening it right away, he turned towards Sophie.

“This is all for you,” he said, squeezing the hand he was holding.

Before Sophie could ask what he meant, he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. It was dark inside, and she could feel Nate searching for the light switch. He found it, and light invaded the space.

And there she saw it.

“It’s a theatre?” she asked incredulously. “You bought me a theatre?”

“You said that you belong here, and I know how much you loved having your own company back in Portland. We should have probably discu…”

Sophie cut him off with a kiss. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close to him. If he was honest with himself, it was the reaction he had been hoping for. With her, it could really have gone either way, but he was glad that she took it well.

“But when?” she asked, when they broke the kiss.

“When did I decide to buy you a theatre? I just saw how happy you were working on the Scottish play during our last con,” he said, being mindful not to speak the name of the play while inside the theatre; she did make him leave when he didn’t respect the superstition the last time. He hadn’t even been allowed to come back until he performed some cleansing rituals. “When did I get around to buy it? Once we decided to move here, I had started looking around for theatre, and found this one. It was pretty easy to hide this from you, seeing as you were agonizing over what to bring along with you.”

“I wasn’t agonizing over anything,” she protested.

“If you say so,” he replied, earning himself a glare. “Everything was handled over the phone, and here we are, today. I take it you like your surprise,” he said, a smile on his lips.

“Very much. It’s perfect. Thank you, Nate,” she said, pecking his lips.

“You will only have to worry about your company and the choice of the plays you’re going to have here. I’ll take care of everything else.”

“Do you think we can still make it work, even with our new job at Interpol?”

“It’s all about defining our priorities,” he assured her.

“And you’re very good at that,” Sophie replied. “Any more surprises I should expect?”

“Not for the moment, no.”

They kissed again but, before thing could become heated, he stepped away.

“While I wouldn’t mind christening the place, what do you say about a tour first?”

She pretended to weigh her options, even though she had already made up her mind. She would love to take on her husband’s offer of sex, but she was also curious about the theatre.

“Let’s see what’s hiding in here,” she said, taking Nate’s hand. “We’ll have plenty of time for the rest, later. After all, this is ours.”

It didn’t take them long to see it all. It might be a small theatre, but it was big enough for what Sophie intended to do with it. She didn’t need a big company; just some talented actors who weren’t afraid of working hard to put on a good show.

The theatre would also need to be renovated; it didn’t scare her, she already had dozens of ideas on how to make this theatre hers.

“I already have the names of some contractors,” Nate said, as if he was reading her mind. “I’ve checked them out, and they’re reliable.”

“We’d know how to make them pay, otherwise,” Sophie joked. “Have you contacted them?”

“No. It’s your theatre, your decision.”

“ _Our_ theatre,” she corrected him. “It will be as much a part of your life as it will be of mine. And you did say something about making decisions together from now on,” she said, reminding him of a conversation they had on the morning after their engagement.

“I did. You’re really not upset I made the decision to buy this theatre without you?” he asked, hoping that she wasn’t hiding her disappointment at him having kept yet another secret from her.

“Trust me, I’m not. You knew this is what I wanted. I can’t be mad at you for having wanted to surprise me with this.” She paused for a moment. “But no more secrets this time.”

“Promise.”

“Thank you for doing this for me.”

“And thank _you_ for agreeing to work with Sterling for me.”

“Well, we can’t have you be bored, can we?”

“It’s getting late. We’ll go tell Sterling the news in the morning. In the meantime, what do you say about dinner?”

“That depends… Do you mean dinner or… _dinner_?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Then, I say dinner first, and then, _dinner_.”

“Whatever you want, my dear. Whatever you want.”

Hand in hand, they started to walk towards the door. Sophie looked back one more time. This was the place where her new life would begin.

 

###

 

He had asked his driver to stop a bit further down the street. He paid him double, as he had promised, and got out. He observed them from afar, unwilling to get closer; she would easily recognize him if she saw him.

He watched as they stopped in front of a building. He had no idea what was hiding inside, so he took advantage of the technology at his disposal. Using his smartphone, he googled the address. There wasn’t much to be found about it, but he now knew that it was a theatre.

But as to why they were here, of all places, he could only guess for the moment. Sure, she had always been fond of the theatre. Once, she had even told him that she had dreamt of being an actress. Maybe she was. Maybe she was a famous stage actress this side of the Atlantic, and he just didn’t know.

He saw the door open and an old man greeting them before handing them keys. The old man then walked away, in his direction, and the couple entered the theatre. He only had a couple of seconds to make a decision; it was a chance that he was a quick-thinker.

As luck would have it, the man didn’t seem to have noticed him yet. He hurried up towards him, looking at the now closed door of the theatre. As the other man walked past him, he let out a sigh and addressed him.

“Excuse me, sir. Wasn’t it Clara Fullerton entering the theatre?” he asked, saying the first name that popped through his mind – why it was the name of his high school girlfriend, he would never know – and hoping to sound like a fan.

“Oh no, sir,” the old man said. “You must have her confused. That was Sophie Devereaux. She’s a stage director.”

“Oh…,” he replied; disappointment could be heard in his voice, but inside, he was elated that his plan had worked. Maybe _he_ should have been an actor. “I really thought that it was her… Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome,” the old man said, walking away.

His eyes stayed on the theatre. Slowly, a smile was stretching his lips. _Sophie Devereaux_ ; so that was the name she was going by, now. He still didn’t know her husband’s name, but he was certain that it was an information he would be able to come by, sooner or later.

He felt strange, suddenly. This morning, he had no idea where she was, or even who she was, and now, he was closer to her and her new identity than he had been in years. 

Once again, he wondered about how fate had brought them in New York City, in the same street, on the same day when she had eluded him for so long. Maybe they were destined to meet again, and it was time.

Not today, though. For the moment, the only thing he knew about her was her name, and he needed more before going to talk to her. He had read once that names held power; so far, he had never really believed it. But now that he knew her name, he could find out everything there was to know about her.

Still he wouldn’t do anything with this tonight. He had plans for the evening that couldn’t be disrupted if he didn’t want anyone to find out what he had been up to during the afternoon. Truthfully, he didn’t want anyone to know that he had found her before he had the chance to talk to her. For the time being, it would be his secret.

He would have to plan carefully in the next few days, or however long it would take him to gather all the information he needed on Sophie Devereaux, if he didn’t want anyone to know.

For the moment, he needed to leave before they came out of the theatre. He didn’t know how long they would be in there, but he didn’t want to wait around and find out. He had what he came here for. That was enough for now.

 

###

 

The door to Hardison’s room opened and closed without a sound. She was used to moving around without making a single noise; she was a thief, after all. She usually loved the silence of the night; she revelled in it. It was her favourite moment of the day. Not tonight, though.

Tonight, her mind couldn't shut down. She couldn't stop thinking about the children. For once, she wondered whether they would be able to help them. She had never really doubted before; she trusted Nate and his plans, she knew he had thought of every single possibility.

But Nate wasn't here anymore. She was the one making the plans, she was the one who had to ensure that they were prepared for any contingency, that the team would be safe.

In the few weeks since Nate and Sophie had left the team, she had become the Mastermind. Tonight was one of those times when she doubted that Nate had been right in choosing her. She was a thief who had always had trouble with interacting with other people. She was getting better at it, and she had Hardison and Eliot to help her, should she need them, but she wasn’t sure she knew enough about people to be able to form soundproof plans.

Sure, it had worked so far, but the jobs they had taken had been easy ones. They had yet to tackle the kind of jobs that would require meticulously prepared plans that suffered no mistake. She was afraid that helping Madeleine Wright and the kids was one such job.

She wanted to call Nate and Sophie and ask for their help, but they had just left for New York. She also knew that they must learn to work without them. It hadn’t been a problem until today, because they had been close enough to call in case the team needed them. It wasn’t the case anymore. They were on the other side of the country; it would take them hours to come back here.

Parker was also certain of what they would say to her. They would tell her to trust herself. Maybe that was really all that she needed, to trust herself to do a good job. She had always trusted herself when it came to being a thief: she knew her abilities and what she could or couldn’t do.

But in this new situation, she was walking on the edge, and she feared she would fall with every step she took. She felt like the only reason she had yet to fall was because she was nimble as a cat. Maybe she should let herself fall, take a leap of faith. She would, if she was the only one at risk. But there was Hardison and Eliot to consider. She would never risk their safety.

That was why they needed the best plan she could come up with for this new job, both for the safety of the team and to save the children’s home. She would need to be able to see any possible outcome, any possible hitch they might hit.

“Parker?”

Hardison’s voice jolted her out of her thoughts. She didn’t how long she had stood there, without moving, but it must have been longer than she thought. She felt bad for having woken him up, and took a step back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I should…”

“Come here,” he interrupted her, holding out his hand.

She hesitated for only a second; she needed to be held tonight. She walked to the bed and lied down beside him. She curled up against him, her head resting against his shoulder. His arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be here when you want to.”

Parker smiled at that. She knew that she was lucky to have him in her life. He had always been willing to wait for her to be ready. He let her set the pace of their relationship, knowing that she still had some trouble opening up.

Even now that they were both living at the Brew Pub, they were still taking things slow; they had their own rooms even though, more often than not, they would find their way into the other’s room during the night. Parker guessed that it was why he woke up despite the fact that she hadn’t made a sound: he had felt her presence in the room, like he had done many other times before that.

His breathing evened out after a while. The movements of his chest underneath her cheek was lulling her to sleep, and she felt her mind ready to shut down. Hardison had never failed to appease her when she needed it.

“I love you,” she whispered, even though he couldn’t hear her.

She let her eyes close, her burden finally laid down.

 

To be continued...


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

 

“ _You are going to what?_ ” Eliot exclaimed, unsure if he had heard Nate and Sophie correctly.

“We’re going to work with Sterling,” Nate repeated.

Sophie had had a feeling that this conversation would not go down well. The younger members of the team had always been wary of the Interpol agent – and with good reasons – so the thought that their former teammates would want to associate with him seemed absurd to them. Nate had tried reassuring her, but even he had to admit that they weren’t reacting as well as he had expected.

Maybe it was the time difference. It might be 10am in New York, but it was barely 7am in Portland. They should have planned their video call at a more reasonable hour. But neither Nate nor Sophie had thought about the time difference before placing the call.

Thankfully, the team had already been up and about, having a new job keeping them busy. They hadn’t told them much about it, only that there were children involved, but it was alright; it wasn’t their team anymore. They didn’t need to be kept appraised of everything.

“ _Wait a minute. Let me check the connection,_ ” Hardison said.“ _There must be something wrong, because I’m pretty sure I heard that you were going to work with Sterling._ ”

Sophie rolled her eyes at Hardison’s antics. She loved him, but sometimes, he could be infuriating. They could all be, now that she really thought about it; she guessed that it was only natural that they had ended up working together.

“ _All joking aside, you are really going to do this?_ ”

“Yes,” Sophie answered Parker’s question. “It’ll be fun,” she added, seeing that they were sceptical. “And it’ll keep Nate’s overactive brain busy.”

“ _That’s probably a good idea,_ ” Hardison replied. “ _Who knows what he’d come up with if he was left alone._ ”

“ _Does that mean that you’ll come against us?_ ” Parker asked, before Nate could say anything.

“No. You are and always will be off-limit, and I’ll make sure Sterling understands that.”

“But do try not to steal paintings or sculptures,” Sophie added. “I’m not sure it’d go down well.”

“ _And if Sterling cause you any problem, call me and I’ll be on the first plane to New York,_ ” Eliot said with a grin that the others could qualify as evil.

“I’ll be sure to let him know that,” Nate said.

“ _Will it be a full-time job?_ ” Parker wanted to know.

“We haven’t discussed this with Sterling, but no,” Sophie replied. “We have another project needing our attention.” She and Nate were looking at each other when she continued. “Nate bought us a theatre.”

She heard the surprise in her friends’ voices, and she could probably see the surprise on their faces too if her eyes weren’t still on her husband.

“ _Nasty, that’s what you are, nasty,_ ” Hardison’s voice prompted them to look back at the screen. “ _You’re not allowed to do that when you’re talking to us._ ”

“We weren’t doing anything,” Nate protested, but the Hacker wasn’t having any of that.

“ _Uh uh. I’ve seen that look before. We’ve all seen it,_ ” he said and Parker and Eliot nodded. “ _So no doing that when we’re talking._ ”

“ _So you’re going to start another company, Sophie?_ ” Eliot asked, changing the subject.

“Definitely. I’ll invite you to the premiere. Whenever that’ll happen.”

Eliot was about to add something when a red alert popped up on the screen.

" _Wow, wow, wow!_ " Hardison exclaimed.

" _Are we being hacked?_ " Parker asked.

"What's going on?" Nate asked, as he and Sophie couldn’t see anything.

" _We're not being hacked. But remember how I have these alerts set up just in case someone googled our names?_ " He paused both for dramatic effects and to continue his own search. " _Well, someone is googling yours, right now, Sophie._ "

"What? Where are they?" Nate asked, worried.

" _I'm on it. I'm on it. And I have it. They're in Manhattan, the New York Public Library._ "

Nate stiffened at Hardison's words. He remembered how Sophie had felt watched when they arrived at the hotel the day before; he had no doubt the two were related. And whoever that was, it couldn't be good.

"Any idea who's searching for me?"

" _Sorry, no. They're using one of the library's computer and it doesn't have a webcam. What is it, the Dark Ages? And they don't even have security cams trained on the computers, just on the entrance._ "

"Then, we’ll go see for ourselves."

"Sophie!"

"Come on, Nate, we're close. And I'd rather know who it is than staying in the expectative."

" _We'll take the first plane out and be here in a few hours,_ " Eliot said, already ready to go.

"By which time, it will be too late. I doubt that they'll patiently wait for us at the library," Nate reasoned. "And you have something important to do, don't you?" he said, having deduced it from what little they told him and Sophie. "No, Sophie's right. We'll go."

" _Alright,_ " Eliot conceded. " _But you use your earbuds and Hardison will monitor everything from here. We’re staying in constant communication._ "

Nate ended the video call as Sophie gave him his earbud.

“Hardison, you copy?” Nate asked.

“ _Yes. You’re both online. Now, remember, be careful._ ”

“We will be,” Sophie assure him. “Now, let’s go see who wants to know about me. You don’t think it has something to do with the theatre?”

“No, I bought it under aliases. Henry is the only one who knows our real names. He thinks that an investor bought the theatre for you.”

“ _Henry? Who’s Henry?_ ” Parker asked.

“Henry is the stage manager of the theatre. He’s a nice, old man.”

“ _Yes, they often are. What’s his last name?_ ” Hardison asked, even though he could easily find it himself.

“Winslow. Henry Winslow,” Nate answered. “But I doubt that he has anything to do with that.”

“ _We’ll see._ ” There was a long pause, during which Nate and Sophie had time to go down to the hotel lobby, and then the Hacker resumed talking. “ _Ok, you were right. He really is a nice, old man. And the GPS on his phone puts him at the theatre._ ”

“ _So, outside of this man and Sterling, who might know that you’re in New York?_ ”

“No one, as far as we know,” Nate replied.

He chose not to talk about the fact that Sophie had felt that she was being watched the day before; there would be time enough for that later.

“Alright, we’re getting into a cab, now,” Sophie said.

They would have to stop talking to the team, for the moment, as they didn’t want their driver to suspect anything. Not that they had something to hide, but it would be safer this way.

 

###

 

He wasn’t sure why he chose not to use his own laptop, or why he felt the need to go to the public library to do his search. He was just out of the door and at the subway station before he realised it. He could only guess that it was because he wanted to keep it a secret, and he wasn’t the only one who had access to his laptop. He could have just erased the browser history, but he hadn’t even thought about that.

No, the public library had been the only logical choice for his subconscious. So, there he was, sitting before one of the computer, ready to begin his search for her. He typed in her name and pressed ‘enter’. It didn’t take long for the results to appear on the screen. And there wasn’t much to be found. There were a few articles about a play she had directed in Portland a couple of months ago. From what he read, she even performed as Lady Macbeth once during the short run, and she had received a standing ovation. He smiled as he read that; she had accomplished her dreams.

Aside from that, there didn’t seem to be anything else about her. The other results often had ‘Sophie’ and ‘Devereaux’ as two different people. He clicked on the second page of the results, thinking that he wouldn’t find anything more. And maybe there was nothing more to be found; maybe she was living a quiet life as a stage director. She wasn’t famous yet, so that would explain the lack of article about her.

That was then that he saw it, a result that sent his mind reeling. He clicked on the link and an article from a French newspaper filled the screen. He might not have practiced it in a long while, but his French was still good enough for him to understand the article. A renowned art thief that went by the name of Sophie Devereaux had stolen two paintings from a museum in Paris a little bit more than ten years ago.

He tried to reason that it was another Sophie Devereaux, but a small, treacherous, part of his mind kept repeating that it had to be her. She was an art thief, and that was the reason why she had changed her name. It was why she had left, without saying a word, all those years ago. She was a thief.

She really wasn’t the person he had known anymore. The woman he had known hadn’t been a thief; she had been the most honest, kind, person that he had known. Unless… she had always been a thief and she had worn a mask whenever she was around him.

He didn’t know what to think anymore. His mind started replaying scenes from his past, twisting the reality, making him see her in a new light. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want his memories of her to be corrupted by what he had just found out.

He couldn’t breathe anymore; the air around him became stifling. He had to get out of here. He quickly closed the browser, taking the time to erase the history, and rushed out of the library. He probably earned himself a few curious looks in doing so, but he didn’t care; he needed to leave this place.

Once outside, he only managed a few more steps, before he had to sit down. A couple of people came to him, asking if he was alright, seeing as he was still hyperventilating, but he reassured them with a smile.

“It’s just a panic attack,” he said, out of breath. “I’m used to them.”

It was only when he said it that he realised that it was exactly that. He had thought he would only use it as an excuse, but that was what was happening to him right now. He hadn’t recognized it at first because it had been years since he last had one.

She had been the cause of the last one, too. Somehow, it was fitting that it would return with her. He wanted to laugh, and he would have if only he had veen able to catch his breath. It would have probably worried the people who were still standing a few feet away, making sure that he was really alright, so it was probably best that he didn’t laugh; they would have thought he was losing his mind.

He wasn’t sure that it wasn’t the case, actually. It felt like everything he had taken for granted was falling apart. All because he had found her and found out what she did for a living. The one thing he had wanted the most in his life and it was changing everything.

He didn’t know anymore whether he wanted to talk to her or not. Up until less than an hour ago, it had been so clear: he had wanted to gather information about her so he could face her. Now that he finally knew who she was, he felt like he didn’t know her anymore.

And the truth was, at this very minute, he felt like he didn’t know who he was anymore, either.

 

###

 

They had barely left the hotel when Hardison informed them that whoever was searching for Sophie was done.

“ _But I can’t tell you if they’re still at the library or if they left altogether._ ”

“We’re still going,” Nate said, as much for Sophie as for the team. “Maybe we’ll recognize someone there.”

He had no idea what would happen if they came face to face with this person, whoever this was, but there was one thing he was sure of: he wouldn’t let anyone harm Sophie. And, as far as he knew for the moment, they were a danger to her.

The rest of the car ride was spent in silent. Sophie was holding onto Nate’s hand. She could feel the tension emanating from him; she knew that he was worried for her safety and she wished that she could reassure him. But there was nothing she could do until they identified the person behind the search.

It wouldn’t happen today, of that she was certain. If it were her, she wouldn’t linger once she had obtained the information she needed; she would be long gone. She had a feeling that, whoever it was, they were alike. They could be a grifter, just like her, or they might have observed her long enough to be able to think like her. This last possibility made her blood run cold; she didn’t like being the prey.

When they arrived at the library, Nate paid the driver and they stood on the sidewalk, looking around. Neither of them noticed anyone taking a special interest in them. People were coming and going, or sitting on the steps, reading a book. No one was standing out in the late morning crowd.

“ _Do you see anything?_ ” Eliot asked, having heard they had arrived through their earbudss.

“Not yet,” Nate answered.

“Maybe they’re still inside?” Sophie ventured. “We should go take a look.”

With a nod, Nate agreed.

“ _Be careful,_ ” Parker said.

Nate still hadn’t released Sophie’s hand; he wanted to hold onto her just in case that the person was still around. He was about to let her out of his sight.

“What did they find when they googled my name?” Sophie asked.

“ _Not much. I make sure that there’s nothing pertaining to our work on the internet. There are a few articles about the_ Macbeth _you directed. I erased everything I could find about your time as an actress, as per your request._ ”

“Thank you, Hardison. I’d rather people don’t remember me for this part of my life,” she explained when Nate sent her a look.

“I thought you were a great actress.”

“ _You were drunk all the time, back then. That doesn’t count,_ ” Eliot said.

They could hear Hardison and Parker chuckling in their earbuds. Nate tried to look offended, even though only Sophie could see him, but even he had to admit that the Hitter had a point: the alcohol had probably altered his perception.

“He was my only fan,” Sophie just said, raising on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

“ _Oh…_ ” They suddenly heard Hardison say.

“What is it, Hardison?” Nate asked.

“ _It looks like I have forgotten something, and they found it. It’s an article in French about you robbing a museum in Paris. It has your name in it. I don’t understand how I could have missed… No, ha ha! Not my fault! They misspelled your name. They forgot the third ‘e’, and my program only looks for correctly spelled words. I might change that._ ”

“ _Yes, you should,_ ” Eliot said. “ _And make sure that you haven’t missed anything else, while you’re at it._ ”

“ _I know, I know, there might be a fatwa with your name on it…_ ”

“ _Yes, there is, and…_ ”

“Guys!” Nate said, interrupting their bickering; now wasn’t the time for that.

“So, they haven’t found anything they didn’t know before,” Sophie said, wanting to feel reassured.

“ _If we assume that they knew all this, no. Ok, I see you on the security camera at the entrance. Once you’re in, you’re on your own._ ”

Nate and Sophie entered the library and started looking around. They looked like tourists, doing this, but they weren’t the only ones; there were many people, even groups, visiting the library. While it helped hide Nate and Sophie, the crowd and the size of the place made it impossible for them to locate the person they came here for.

Knowing that it was useless, they didn’t stay long inside. The person was probably long gone, having left the building just after they concluded their search.

“You really don’t have any way to identify this person?” Nate asked Hardison.

“ _I could look through the footage of the entrance, but did you see the number of people coming and going? Not to mention that we don’t know who we’re looking for: a past mark, bent on revenge or someone new?_ ”

“And why did they google my name, only?” Sophie added. “If it was about the team, they would have googled all of our names, but there, it was just mine.”

“ _Are you saying that it’s about you?_ ” Eliot asked.

“It certainly looks like it. I’ve worked a lot before Chicago, and I may have pissed off a person or two.”

“ _Can you make a list? I’ll check if they’re in your area._ ”

“I could, Hardison, but you have better things to do, don’t you?”

“Sophie’s right. You have a job to do. We’ll take care of this for the moment. If we need your help, we’ll call.”

“ _Are you certain?_ ”

“Yes, Parker,” Nate replied. “Now, go help the children, and let us fend for ourselves. We’ll be fine.”

“ _But you call the minute you know something,_ ” Eliot said.

They had to promise that they would – along with a promise to make contact once a day – before they were able to say their goodbyes to the team. They took off their earbuds, and laughed at the team’s antics.

“They’re only doing what you taught them to,” Sophie said.

“I know. I know. We taught them well, didn’t we?”

Sophie just hummed in response, leaning against his size. It wasn’t even noon and she was already exhausted, the fact that someone out there was looking for her taking its toll on her.

“What do you say we go tell Sterling the good news, and then we go back to our hotel for a nap?”

“I know what your naps turn out to be, Mr Ford.”

“I never heard you complain, before.”

He was right; she never did because she never had a reason too. And she wouldn’t start today.

 

To be continued...


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6  
_

“I can’t believe how easy it has been,” Sophie said, sitting on the desk. “I mean, this is Interpol, and we came all the way to Sterling’s office without any trouble. Should we tell him they have a security problem?”

“Well, we should, but where would be the fun in that?” Nate replied with a smile.

Sophie chuckled before leaning against him to capture his lips in a kiss. One kiss turned into two, then three. He put his hands on her waist, his thumb finding their way underneath her top, and stroking her skin. She shivered at the contact, stepping even closer to him.

But two could play that game. One of her hands played with the hair at the base of his nape, while the other started to untuck his shirt from his pants.

So caught up in the moment, they had completely forgotten where they were. The door open without warning, and they quickly separated. They turned to find Sterling and Agent Casey standing on the threshold.

Without any hassle, Nate tucked his shirt back in his pants. Sophie took out a small mirror from her bag, and checked her make-up.

“Do you have to do this, here, in my office?” Sterling asked, once he overcame his initial shock. “And how did you get here?”

“We took a cab,” Sophie replied to annoy him, reapplying her lipstick.

“Very funny. Never mind,” he said, knowing that he wouldn’t get a straight answer; his agents, on the contrary, would get an earful as people without clearance weren’t supposed to wander in the building, alone. “I trust there is a reason why you’re here.”

Neither Sophie nor Nate doubted that he already knew the answer to his question; he just wanted to hear them say it. But they decided to make him wait just a little bit longer.

“Agent Casey. Nice to see you under better circumstances,” Nate said, shaking her hand.

“Likewise, Mr Ford. And you must be Sophie Devereaux,” she said, turning towards Sophie. “It’s a pleasure to finally put a face to a name.”

“Now that we’re done with the niceties, care to tell me what you’re doing here?” Sterling said, getting impatient.

“Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?” Sophie asked, before turning towards Nate. “You know, if we’re going to be facing _this_ every time, I’m starting to rethink our decision. How can you have worked with him every day and even be best friends for years?”

“We weren’t best friends,” Nate corrected, almost without thinking. “And well, it’s not always obvious, but he has some good parts. I’m sure that Agent Casey will agree with me, here.”

“I don’t care,” Sterling said, before Agent Casey could even open her mouth. “You have ten seconds to tell me what I want to hear or I’ll have you arrested. And don’t worry, I’ll find a charge,” he added at Sophie’s intention.

“Maybe we _should_ call Eliot,” Sophie just said, turning towards Nate.

“Let’s keep that in mind for the next time, darling,” Nate replied, although he had to admit that it was tempting. “Now, I think you know perfectly well why we’re here, today, Sterling.”

“Why don’t you humour me and tell me anyway?” Sterling argued, a fake smile plastered on his face.

Knowing that the Interpol agent wouldn’t cave on that, Nate decided to stop playing games. For the moment.

“We accept your offer to work with you…”

“ _For_ me,” Sterling interrupted, but he was ignored.

“But we do have some conditions before we sign anything.”

“Of course you do. And what, pray tell, are they?”

“First, we won’t work full-time. Second we get to choose the cases. Third, we’ll only start in about a month. We’ve just arrived, yesterday, as you know it. We need some time to find a place to live.”

“Unless the job offer comes with an apartment,” Sophie added.

“Don’t push it,” Sterling said. He paused, thinking about what Nate had just said. “I can work with those. Anything else?”

“Yes, and it’s a deal breaker,” Sophie said. “The team is off-limits. No matter what they do, you don’t touch them.”

“Well, I think they have something more important to do than stealing art, don’t they?” Sterling asked, referring to the Black File. “Fine. As long as they stay out of my way, they’re safe.”

Nate and Sophie shared a look. He wanted to make sure, one last time, that she still agreed to their plan. She nodded, imperceptibly; she hadn’t changed her mind, despite Sterling being as obnoxious as ever.

“Where do we sign?” Nate asked.

Sterling went to his desk, and opened a drawer, retrieving some their contracts. Nate held out his hand for them.

“Let’s make one thing clear, first,” he said, keeping the contracts just out of reach. “You work _for_ me. Not with me, _for_ me.”

Neither Sophie nor Nate said anything in reply. They kept looking at Sterling who looked back.

It didn’t take long for Agent Casey to understand that it was a battle of wills between the two former friends. Neither part was ready to lose the upper hand to the other. She had no idea who would win, but it was certainly interesting to watch. From the look of it, it might last a long time, and she wondered whether Sterling would find fault if she sat down to observe.

In the end, to Agent Casey, it didn’t look like anybody won. Sophie sighed and just took the contracts from Sterling and handed Nate his while she signed hers.

“We have better things to do,” she reminded Nate with a look, and he immediately set to sign his own contract.

“It’ll be a pleasure to work with you, Sterling,” Nate said, ironically, as he and Sophie walked out of the office.

“For me!” Sterling called after them, before realising it was a waste. “Oh, whatever… What are you smiling about?” he asked Agent Casey.

“Nothing.”

She was glad that she had asked to be transferred to Sterling’s team; she had a feeling that things would be interesting around here from now on.

 

###

 

“Stop worrying about them, Parker,” Eliot said, easily reading her face. “They know what they’re doing, and they will call if anything happens.”

“I know that, but what if it’s someone like Dubenich? It was a close call. We almost lost Nate to his desire of revenge. What if it’s Moreau?” she asked, the thought suddenly crossing her mind.

“I doubt that Moreau would go after Sophie. I’d be his target. Besides, I talk regularly with General Flores and Moreau is still locked up with no way to communicate with the outside world. We have nothing to worry about.”

“Still, Parker is right,” Hardison said. “We have angered quite a lot of people in the past five years. It could be any one of them.”

“Then, why didn’t they search our names, too?” Eliot reasoned. “Why only Sophie’s? You’re quite certain that they haven’t googled our names, right?”

“Of that I am,” Hardison replied. “This person was only after Sophie. Not that it is reassuring in any way.”

“No, it’s not. But there’s nothing we can do for the moment,” Eliot said. “This person won’t stay hidden for long, if you want my opinion. They would soon reveal themselves to Nate and Sophie, and we’ll be there to help them when the time comes.”

“But until then, we have a job to do,” Parker finished, having followed his line of thought.

Eliot was right, of course; they had children to help and it took precedence over anything else. Even their friends. Nate and Sophie could defend themselves, the children couldn’t. It was up to her, Hardison and Eliot.

And that was why they were here, today.

Hardison had parked the van a block away from I.S.B.’s main offices. The screens were displaying images of the building and all the information he had been able to gather on the company. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. The C.E.O. was still the main mystery, and Parker was starting to get worried; it never bode well when someone tried to hide their implication in a company. They would have to remain vigilant.

“I.S.B.’s offices are on the 10th floor. They have cameras all over the floor, so that means that I can track your progression. The downside is that they can, too, if they suspect anything. So try to stay under their radar.”

It had already been decided that Parker and Eliot would go in as potential investors. I.S.B. was well established in Oregon, and was now trying to expand across the country. Hardison had found a call for investors on their website, and thus, their way in. It had been easy to get an appointment – too easy if you asked the Hacker, but no one did – and here they were, the day after they had taken the case, ready to make their first contact.

“You have an appointment with Miranda Fisher, the Chief Financial Officer of I.S.B.,” Hardison explained as he called her photo on the screens. “If you can get close enough to her computer, I will be able to access it and take a closer look at their finances. And as she reports directly to the CEO, I might even be able to find their name.”

Parker was nervous; she wasn’t a grifter and it was a job for a grifter. Sure, she had picked up a thing or two from Sophie over the years, but she lacked some social skills that she would certainly need today. She wasn’t alone, though. Eliot would be with her, and he had proved to be quite the grifter. She would follow his lead, and hoped that she wasn’t as bad an actress as Sophie was when she was on stage.

With a nod, Eliot left the van. Parker moved to follow, but she was stopped by Hardison: he took her hand and looked at her intently. He tried to convey his faith in her and he succeeded, judging by the small smile on her face. She squeezed his hand before releasing it and joining Eliot outside.

They walked the rest of the way to the building in silence, both concentrated on what lied ahead of them. They both decided to push the fact that they were doing this for the children to the back of their minds; right now, this job was like any other: a big corporation using its powers and money against defenceless people.

They entered the lobby and went straight to the front desk.

“Hello. How can I help you?” the young woman there asked.

“We have an appointment with Mrs Fisher at I.S.B.,” Eliot replied, with a flirting smile.

“Can I have your names, please?”

“Sean Masterson and Julie Craig,” he answered.

“Thank you. This way, sir, ma’am,” the employee indicated as she opened the glass doors to let them through.

Parker and Eliot walked to the elevators, each taking note of where the other exits were located, in case they had to run. They went up to the 10th floor and, when the door opened, they saw Miranda Fisher waiting for them, a large smile on her lips.

“Welcome to I.S.B.,” she said, shaking their hands. “I’m Miranda Fisher, the CFO.”

“Julie Craig and Sean Masterson,” Eliot introduced them, holding onto her hand a bit longer than what was necessary.

“Why don’t I give you a tour of the company, and then we’ll go to my office to talk?” she suggested, as she opened the glass doors for them.

“Sure. I’m quite curious about your company, Mrs Fisher,” Parker said, her voice steadier than what she thought it would be.

“You are?”

“Of course,” Parker continued, feeling more confident. “You’re a small company of what… 50 employees?”

“30 employees, actually,” Miranda Fisher corrected, gesturing to the open space behind her.

“And you’re making big profits by buying buildings or warehouses and after renovating them, you sell them for at least twice the price you paid for them,” Parker recited what Hardison had told them. “I think you can understand my curiosity.”

If Eliot had been worried about Parker’s performance before, he wasn’t anymore. She might lack Sophie’s subtlety, but her bluntness did the job; Miranda Fisher certainly looked impressed that she knew all that about the company. He couldn’t have done it better.

“I see that you’ve done your research before coming here.”

“We like to know the companies we’re investing in,” Eliot replied.

“I’m of the same mind,” she said, her tone of voice implying what they already knew: she had researched their aliases.

“Then, I think we can understand each other,” Parker said. “Of course, we still have a few questions for you, but they can wait after the tour.”

“And I’ll answer them to the best of my abilities.”

“We’re certain you will,” Eliot said.

Miranda Fisher led Parker and Eliot through the office. Most of the employees had their desks in the open space, and only the senior staff had their own offices. She explained that only the buys and sells were handled in these offices. They didn’t have a division for the renovation and construction, but they’d rather hire local contractors.

“I.S.B. isn’t just in it for the profit. We want to help the local economy as much as we can. What better way than to employ local contractors when we need them?”

“But doesn’t that cost you more than having contractors on payroll?” Eliot asked.

“You’re right on that point, but our CEO doesn’t want a big, rich company that is all powerful. He really wants to help.”

At those words, Eliot and Parker – and Hardison in the van – imperceptibly tensed; it was something they were very familiar with. They were used to fight against these companies.

“ _Didn’t I tell you that there was something fishy?_ ” Hardison said on the comms. “ _Get her to her office. And get her to talk about her boss._ ”

“We understand,” Eliot said, having recovered more quickly than Parker. “It’s something we believe in, too. Maybe we could go to your office and you could tell us more about it?”

“Follow me,” Miranda Fisher said.

Parker and Eliot said in the visitor’s chairs while the CFO sat behind her desk. The Thief was careful to set her bag close enough to the computer for Hardison to hack into it. She was still surprised at the other woman’s words; it hit too close to home, and it didn’t feel like a coincidence.

Hardison had been right in saying that something was going on with this company. Now, it was up to them to find out exactly what. It wasn’t just about the kids and the orphanage anymore: it was personal.

“Your CEO seems like a good person,” Parker said, attacking frontally. “Our research on your company didn’t provide us with a name, though…”

“Yes. Our CEO chose to remain anonymous. It’s something I don’t always understand, but I respect his decision. I tried to convince him to come out of his anonymity, now that the company will be spreading throughout the country, but he doesn’t want to. To be honest with you, I’ve never even seen him. Our only conversations are via e-mails.”

“But surely, you can tell us his name?” Eliot asked.

“I’m sorry, but no. It may surprise you, but I don’t even know it, myself,” she revealed. “I did ask, of course, but he refused to tell me. He takes his anonymity very seriously as you can see.”

“ _Stranger and stranger. I’ll access her inbox and look at these conversations._ ”

“People with money are always the most eccentric ones,” Parker said with a chuckle.

“I think we can say that, yes.”

“ _Um, guys, we may have a problem…_ ” Hardison said. “ _You will want to get out of here, and fast._ ”

“I think we have all we need to make our decision, don’t we, Sean?” Parker said, turning towards Eliot.

“Really?” Miranda Fisher said, surprised. “But I haven’t told you about our finances, yet, and the profit you could make by investing in the company.”

“Yes, but we don’t base our decisions on numbers, but rather on the philosophy of the company, and I think we’re on the same page” Eliot said, hoping that his explanation was convincing enough. “You can expect to hear from us very soon.”

“That’s g…”

“Excuse me, Miranda,” a man said, entering her office without knocking. “We have a situation.”

“Don’t worry about us. We’ll find our way out. Goodbye,” Parker said.

They walked calmly towards the elevator, trying to look inconspicuous. Knowing Hardison, they didn’t think that the company could trace the hacking back to them, but they didn’t want to stick around to find out.

Eliot sent a flirty smile in the direction of the front desk employee as they walked past her. They exited the building and made their way back to the van.

“What the hell happened, Hardison?” Eliot asked, as they joined the Hacker inside.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t even get near her inbox. It was like they knew all of my moves.”

Silence fell in the van, all of them thinking the same thing. Finally, it was Parker who voiced it.

“They know us.”

 

###

 

After he left the public library, he wandered all day long. It was a good thing he didn’t have anywhere to go that day, because he forgot about everything but what he had found out about _her_. Sophie; he might as well call her that in his mind from now on. This woman he read about wasn’t the one he knew. It was Sophie Devereaux.

He had somehow ended up in Central Park. He guessed it was better than being lost in a neighbourhood he didn’t know. Feeling tired, he sat on a bench. The sun was beginning to set down, and the air was getting chillier. He shouldn’t stay long, but right now, he didn’t feel like going anywhere. Except to her.

It was funny. When he left the library, the last thing he wanted was to see her again, but now, he wanted to run to her, to question her until he knew everything. He just wasn’t sure he had the energy to even move from this bench.

His cell phone rang in his pocket, but he ignored it. He knew who it would be, and he knew he should answer, but he didn’t want to talk, to answer questions about his whereabouts. The call went to voicemail, and he knew he had a brief reprieve before he would hear the ringtone again.

His mind went back to Sophie. She hadn’t left his thoughts since he had first seen her the day before. But the hope and happiness he had felt yesterday had since vanished.

Instead, for hours now, the same question had kept coming back to the front of his mind. A question he didn’t have an answer to. What had happened for her to become a thief? There had to be a reason, because the woman he used to know wasn’t a thief. Or at least, he didn’t think she was; he wasn’t sure anymore.

He looked up to the sky. The stars would soon come out. He used to look out at the night sky and wonder where she was. Now, he knew that she was looking at the exact same sky as he was, and he didn’t feel relieved at that thought. She was close and yet he felt that she had never been farther away from him.

He sighed; although he had never looked for her, his dream had been to find her and, without knowing it, she had ruined it. He blamed her, even though a small part of his mind told him that she wasn’t the only one responsible for his disappointment. In the years since she had left, he had idealized her, he had thought her to be more perfect that anyone could ever be. He realised that, now.

He didn’t even know anymore if she had ever shown him her true self. Maybe she had always played a role around him. He wouldn’t know unless he asked her.

And that was when he knew that his mind was made up. He had too many questions to ignore them. To ignore _her_. He would go to the theatre tomorrow and confront her. He would give her no choice but to talk to him. He wouldn’t let her run away from him again.

He would tell her everything that he had on his mind. He would finally put words to his feelings. He would stop being haunted by her, by an image of her that couldn’t be farther away from the truth.

Yes, tomorrow, he would do that. And the next step would be up to her.

Tomorrow.

To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7  
_  
When they arrived at the Brew Pub, they immediately went to the back rooms.

Their minds were still reeling from what had happened at I.S.B.. These people knew them; they knew how they worked. Of that, they had no doubt. But they weren’t expecting the team to come straight to their offices; if they did, Eliot and Parker wouldn’t have been able to leave. Hardison had kept monitoring their security cameras as they drove away, and no one at I.S.B. had even made a move in running after them.

“So what do we do, now?” Hardison asked as he sat down on his chair.

Both Parker and Eliot knew what their friend was really asking; he wanted to know whether they continued the job or walked away. It was something they all thought about during the drive back to the pub. Continuing could prove risky for them, but walking away would mean giving up on the children. And it wasn’t something they could do.

“We continue,” Parker said. “It’s not the first time that we might be in danger.”

But it would be the first time since Parker became the mastermind. She couldn’t help but wonder whether she would be up to the task in these circumstances. She hadn’t thought she would be facing such a situation this fast. She was certain that even Nate couldn’t have predicted this.

This job had seemed so easy at first. It hadn’t be so different from other jobs that they had done before. This, and the fact that children had been involved had been the reasons why they took it. They could never turn their backs on children. And I.S.B. must have known that, Parker realised suddenly.

“We’ve been set up,” she said.

“What do you mean, babe?”

“Just think about it for a second,” she replied. “A big company against children. Was there any way we wouldn’t have taken the job?” she asked, and Hardison and Eliot shook their heads. “They know us. They know how we work, the jobs we’re more likely to take. It’s the first time I.S.B. decides to tear down an inhabited building, instead of renovating it and, as luck would have it, it’s an orphanage.”

“They didn’t try and stop Madeleine Wright from talking to the journalists,” Eliot said. “It’s like they wanted us to find about it and do something. Parker’s right: it was a trap designed for us.”

“And we fell right into it,” Hardison finished.

Silence fell as they were all considering the facts. Things were going the wrong way with this case. They became the marks without any of them noticing until it was too late.

The fact that it was a trap was changing everything. If they still agreed to continue, they would knowingly put themselves at risk. They would allow themselves to fall further into the trap.

They had no idea what I.S.B. wanted with them; while they seemed to know them, the team didn’t know these people. They didn’t know what would wait for them at the end of the fall.

But there was one thing they were sure of: if they upped and left, there would be children who would lose the only home they had ever known. There was no way they could let that happen.

“Hardison, you need to find out who the CEO of I.S.B. is,” Parker said. “I have a feeling that it’s someone we know from a former job.”

“On it,” he replied, even though he didn’t have much hope. “What about Madeleine Wright? Do we consider her part of this trap? Or is she innocent in all of this?”

“Is there any link between her and I.S.B. prior to their acquisition of her house?” Eliot asked.

“None that I’ve found, but I can’t be sure of anything. They know how I work. They could have hidden all the evidences in a way that even I can’t find them.”

“So, you need to stop thinking like yourself and start thinking like they would,” Parker suggested. “We’ll go talk to Madeleine Wright, see if she’s hiding anything. She seemed sincere yesterday, but you never know.” She paused, before deciding to voice the doubts she had about herself. “Maybe we should call Nate and Sophie and ask them to come. He would know what to do better than I do.”

“Nate would do exactly what you suggested, babe,” Hardison tried to reassure her.

“He chose you because he trusted you to cover all the angles, and you do,” Eliot added. “And they have enough on their plates, right now, don’t you think?”

“What if Sophie’s stalker is linked to I.S.B.?” Hardison asked as the thought crossed his mind.

“This person only googled Sophie” Eliot said. “The more I think about it, the more I think it’s someone from her past. I really doubt that we’re up against the same person.”

“I don’t know… Maybe you’re right. I guess. We won’t know for sure until we identify the stalker and the CEO of I.S.B.. They may be the same person, or different, completely unrelated people. Listen, while I don’t think we need their help, we do need to call Nate and Sophie to warn them. If I.S.B. ends up being related to one of our previous jobs, it’s likely they’ll go after them too, even though they’re on the other side of the country.”

“Alright, but it’ll wait until tomorrow,” Eliot conceded. “It’s late in New York and there’s nothing they can do tonight, anyway. Agreed?”

Hardison and Parker nodded. Eliot was right; there was no need to worry them until the morning. And by then, maybe Hardison would find something they could use. But until then, it would be just the three of them.

“I’m going to make us something to eat,” Eliot said, knowing that they would be at it for most of the night.

He was tensed and cooking would help him relax. It always did. Other people did sports to relax, but he cooked. While he was cooking, he wasn’t thinking of anything else. He forgot all about the cons, the people he hurt or killed, the man he was desperately trying to find in his mirror every morning. When he walked into a kitchen, he wasn’t a hitter anymore; he was a chef.

He would make Hardison and Parker their favourite dishes. (Parker’s had been hard to find; she had been known for eating only cereals at one point.) It would help them relax and maybe think of something else for a little while. They needed that, just as much as he did.

He entered the kitchen, greeting the cooks, and leaving all of his troubles at the door.

 

###

Sophie sat at the table with her laptop. She waited for Maggie to come online. It had been a little while since the two had found the time to talk. The last time had been just after Nate and Sophie had come back from their honeymoon. With preparing for the move to the East Coast, Sophie barely had time for her friend. Even though she knew Maggie wouldn’t hold it against her, she still felt bad.

So, today, Sophie made some time for Maggie. She had sent Nate away after lunch – and he had been more than happy to go, still uncomfortable with the fact that his ex-wife and his current wife were friends – and set up her laptop for a video chat.

A little past 2pm, Maggie’s face appeared on the screen.

“Hi,” Sophie said. “How are things on the West Coast?”

“ _Same old, same old,_ ” Maggie answered, although Sophie could see that there was something she wasn’t saying. “ _How about you? How’s married life treating you?_ ”

“It’s great. But it’s strange how it doesn’t feel that different from before. The only thing that really changed is that now he can’t run away from me,” she said.

“ _He has never really wanted to run away from you,_ ” Maggie replied. “ _It’s just that, sometimes, Nate needs some time alone. He will always come back to you, Sophie. Speaking of the devil, where’s Nate?_ ”

“He needed some time alone,” Sophie joked. “More seriously, I told him that you and I needed to chat, and he was more than happy to go take a walk.”

“ _He still doesn’t understand how we can be friends, does he?_ ”

“I think he doesn’t try to. I think that we’re every man’s nightmare.”

“ _Why? Because we_ can _be friends?_

“I know. After all, _we_ should be uncomfortable, not Nate. I’m sleeping with your ex-husband.”

“ _And I’ve slept with your husband._ ”

They laughed, as they always did when they talked about it. Their friendship certainly was an unusual one. When they first met, neither woman had thought that they would end up being friends. They were too different.

It was Nate who brought them together. (He would protest, if they were to tell him that, so they chose to keep it to themselves. But it was true.) After what happened in Ukraine, Maggie had gotten Sophie’s number from Eliot. She had needed to talk to the Grifter, to understand what had happened for her to leave. But she had mostly needed to talk about Nate.

From then on, a friendship had formed, and it had only grown stronger with time, with Sophie even teaching Maggie to grift, at the latter’s request.

“ _How’s New York?_ ” Maggie asked, when they both calmed down.

“It’s a city full of dreams and possibilities. Nate bought us a theatre.”

“ _I know._ ”

“How do you know?” Sophie asked, raising an eyebrow. “Did Nate tell you?” At Maggie’s look, she immediately understood who told her. “Two questions. How did Sterling know? And how often do you talk to him?”

“ _I have no idea how he found out, I promise. Nor do I know how he knew you were moving to New York. I didn’t tell him._ ”

“I know you didn’t,” Sophie reassured her. “Now, about that second question…”

“ _We talk every couple of weeks,_ ” Maggie replied with a shrug. “ _There’s nothing going on, Sophie. We’re friends._ ”

“Funny, that’s what I used to say about my relationship with Nate. ‘We’re just friends. There’s nothing between us’,” Sophie said.

“ _It’s really not the same thing, Sophie._ ”

“And yet, you are attracted to him. Don’t deny it, you told me so. And you told Nate.”

“ _He told you?_ ”

“Not really,” Sophie replied, sheepishly. “His comm was on. I heard it, but I don’t think he realised that.”

“ _You were spying on us?_ ” Maggie asked.

“Not really. I had just put my earbud in when you said this. But it wasn’t like I didn’t already know.”

“ _I know_ ,” Maggie relented. “ _But really, Sophie, I can assure that nothing is going on. We just talk on the phone._ ”

“And that’s all?” Sophie asked, feeling that there was more that her friend wasn’t saying.

“ _He took me to dinner the last time he was in town. But Olivia was there, too, so it wasn’t a date,_ ” she quickly added, knowing the conclusion the Grifter would jump to.

“I’ll grant you that one. Do you think he wants something to happen?”

“ _I don’t know. I don’t even know where I stand on this. Whatever I decide,_ we _decide, it’ll affect our friendship.”_

 __“But maybe not in a bad way. We need to talk about this over drinks,” Sophie decided.

“ _How did we go from New York to talking about my love life? Or lack thereof, for that matter._ ”

“I’m not sure,” Sophie said, chuckling. “Seriously, Maggie, even though it’s Sterling, you could do a lot worse.”

“ _I don’t think Nate would see it this way,_ ” Maggie said, just as the door of the hotel room opened.

“What wouldn’t I see this way?” he asked, as he came into the room.

“You’re already here?” Sophie said, hoping to change topics before he demanded an answer to his question.

“ _Hello Nate,_ ” Maggie greeted him, waving a hand at him.

“Hello Maggie. Sorry to interrupt your girl talk,” he said, clearing his throat. “It had started to rain outside, and I thought you’d be done by now.”

“ _My fault,_ ” his ex-wife replied. “ _I had an appointment that ran longer than I thought. Sophie told me you bought a theatre. I hope I’ll be invited to the premiere._ ”

“You will,” Sophie assured her. “By the way, do you have any trips to the East Coast planned?”

“ _Not at the moment. But I’m certain something will come up. We’ll go shopping._ ”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Sophie replied with a smile.

From where he was standing next to his wife, Nate was hoping that they wouldn’t make him go with them. He had never liked shopping when either of them dragged him along, but he thought he would really hate it if he had to go with the two of them.

“ _I’m sorry, Sophie, but I have to go. I have a working lunch, and I can’t be late._ ”

“It’s alright. Bye Maggie. And think about what we talked about.”

“ _I will. Bye Nate, bye Sophie. Talk to you soon._ ”

Maggie signed off, and Sophie closed the lid of her laptop. She turned towards Nate who was looking at her with raised eyebrows; he hadn’t forgotten what he heard when he came into the room.

“Forget about it. And I thought you didn’t want to know anything, anyway?”

“Were you talking about me?”

“We always talk about you, darling,” Sophie replied, kissing him on the lips. “After all, we do need to compare notes.”

Nate knew that Sophie was joking, but he still felt uncomfortable. She did it on purpose, of course, just like she changed the conversation on purpose when he arrived in their hotel room.

Maybe it was better that he didn’t know. But something told him that, whatever it was, he wouldn’t like it. And his instinct was rarely wrong.

“Now, what could we do to occupy ourselves while it’s raining?” Sophie said, running her hands on his chest.

She was changing the subject, again, but this time, he didn’t mind.

 

###

 

When morning came, he woke up, still feeling resolved. Today would be the day he would talk to her. He drank his first coffee of the day, got ready, and left his hotel room.

He took a cab to the theatre and arrived there a little before 8am. He doubted that she was already there. He had never known her as an early riser, and even though she had changed dramatically since he last saw her, he didn’t think this did.

He noticed a small café on the other side of the street. From one of the tables by the window, he would be able to see the comings and goings at the theatre. He would see her arrive, but she wouldn’t know he was here until he was ready.

He crossed the street and entered the café, going to sit at a table by the window. There were only a couple other customers at this time of the day, so it wasn’t long before a waitress came to his table.

“What can I get you?”

“A latte and a blueberry muffin, please,” he said, after looking at the menu. “You don’t mind if I sit here for a few hours as long as I order coffee or food?” he asked, taking his laptop out of his bag. “I have work to do, and it’s calmer here than at home,” he easily lied.

“There’s no problem with that. We have free wi-fi if you need it. I’ll come back with your order.”

“Thank you.”

He opened his laptop and a word processor; he might have just use work as an excuse to stay here, but he would have to keep up the appearance that he was working. As it was, he had an idea of what to type: he would make a list of everything he knew –or he thought he knew – about her, and that included what he had found out the day before.

Maybe it would help him see things differently. At the very least, it would give him something to do while he waited for her to make an appearance.

As it turned out, he waited all day long, and he didn’t even catch sight of her. His eyes hadn’t been glued to the window – that would have looked suspicious – but he was still quite certain that she never came. At least, not through this door; the theatre might have another entrance, but he couldn’t know.

He wondered if the fact that she didn’t show up was a sign. A sign that, maybe, he shouldn’t talk to her. If it was one, he would ignore it. He wasn’t about to change his mind, again. Typing the list had convinced him that he was doing the right thing. He was exactly where he was supposed to be, right now.

He knew that others wouldn’t see it this way, even less if they knew that she was a thief. But he didn’t care about them. He was doing this for him, not for them. Depending on the outcome, they might never even know that he had seen her, let alone talked to her; it was the one thing he hadn’t made up his mind on.

He wondered if he should stick around for another hour or just call it a day and come back tomorrow. He doubted that she would come now. It was still raining outside and, if there was one thing he was still sure of, even all those years later, it was that she hated the rain and what it did to her hair. Unless she had something urgent to attend to at the theatre, he didn’t think he would see her today.

He gestured for the waitress, a different one than from the morning, and paid for his food and drinks. He close his laptop and put it back in his bag, taking out his umbrella instead.

As he left the café, he wondered if they would find it weird when he came back the next day, and sat at the very same table. Not that it would stop him if they did.

 

To be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8  
_

They had barely slept that night. It had been almost 3am when they finally called it a day. Instead of going back to his place, Eliot had stayed in one of the rooms upstairs; he knew he had to be back early in the morning.

But, to their dismay, their long night had been fruitless. Hardison still hadn’t managed to hack into the servers of I.S.B.. He had tried thinking like other hackers – and yes, even like Cha0s – but it had been to no avail; their servers were impenetrable. Outside of the Steranko, Hardison had never been confronted to a system that he couldn’t defeat. And this wasn’t the Steranko. He had to admit that he would like to know who was behind it, and ask them a few questions.

The other thing they hadn’t found was a link between Madeleine Wright and I.S.B.. It should have been a relief but, given the servers they were facing, the team wouldn’t be surprised if the link was there but too well hidden for them to find. They would talk to her, and try to determine whether she was sincere or a good actress.

While Hardison had spent the night on his computers, with Eliot helping to the best of his abilities and providing them with food and drinks, Parker had been sitting a few feet away. She had been so deep in her thoughts that she wouldn’t have heard it if someone had talked to her. She had been forming plans in her head, discarding those that had no chance to work, or those that were just too dangerous for them. By the time Eliot and Hardison forced her to get some sleep, she had had ten different plans ready.

When she got up in the morning, she had two more plans. Given that they still didn’t know who they were up against, she knew she needed more to ensure the safety of the team. She wanted to be able to counter each of their mark’s moves, to anticipate each of their reactions. This was what she had seen Nate do for years, and she hoped she had learned enough from him to do it too.

When Eliot came down the stairs, it was to find Parker and Hardison at the same places they occupied the night before. If he didn’t know for sure that they had gone back to their rooms for a few hours, he could have sworn they hadn’t moved at all. He couldn’t blame them for being back at work; it was barely 7am, and he was already up, too.

He wasn’t sure they had noticed him, but it didn’t matter. He went to the kitchens and started to make breakfast. Unlike his friends, he didn’t think there was something more to do. But he knew that, if they were still at it, it was because they wanted to have something to do. It was also one of the reasons why he was in the kitchens.

When he came back to their headquarters with a tray, Hardison raised his head, having smelled the food.

“Parker, come eat,” Eliot called, setting the tray on the table beside Hardison.

They didn’t talk much during breakfast, each of them deep in their thoughts. They had decided to go to the orphanage to talk to Madeleine Wright right after breakfast. It would still be early, and she would certainly be busy with the kids, but she wouldn’t be expecting them at this hour. With the kids running around, she would also be more likely to make a mistake and reveal something that she shouldn’t have.

If she had anything to do with I.S.B., they would confound her.

Less than an hour later, they were in the van, on their way to the orphanage. Hardison was behind the wheel, with Eliot in the passenger seat and Parker in the back, sulking. She had tried to convince Hardison to let her drive, but both men had vetoed it, and remembered her of the two situations where she was allowed to drive.

“Come on, babe. I’ll make it up to you. What about a better version of the Parker 2000? The Parker 3000. I can already see it. Or maybe not, your choice, babe,” he said, remembering Parker’s first reaction to it.

“I don’t want to replace Hardy.”

“I wish I could forget you named it Hardy,” Eliot muttered, but Parker heard him anyway.

“Why? I like it, I like Hardison, hence Hardy!”

“Parker 2000 was a perfectly good name,” Hardison said.

“You don’t like it that I named it after you?” Parker asked.

“I do. I’m honoured, but you know, I’m a hacker, but it’s a safe-cracker, just like you. It made more sense.”

“But it’s mine, so I get to choose its name. And, like I said, I don’t want a replacement. But I do know how you can make it up to me,” she said with a grin.

“Oh no. Oh no no no, Parker,” Hardison replied, as he saw her face in the mirror. “No more repelling down skyscrapers. No. More.”

“Oh come on. We have yet to repel down the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s the highest skyscraper in the world. Oh, even better: base jumping!”

“No! No repelling and certainly no base jumping.”

“But…”

“Stop it, both of you!” Eliot suddenly exclaimed, surprising them both.

“What is it?” Parker asked, seeing that he was tensed.

“We’re being followed,” Eliot answered, his eyes fixed on the mirror. “The black SUV that’s right behind us. And they’re not being discreet about it.”

“I.S.B.?” Hardison asked, to which Eliot nodded. “So what do we do?”

“Step on it.”

“Can I drive? I believe this is one of the situation where I can,” Parker said, quite excitedly.

"We have more pressing matters, Parker," Eliot replied.

"I can't lose them. Their SUV is faster than Lucille."

Eliot watched in the mirror as the SUV came closer and closer. The windows were tinted and he couldn't see who was inside. Even if he did, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't have recognized them.

"Brace yourselves."

Just as Eliot said that, the SUV collided with the back of the van. Parker had to hold onto their seats not to be thrown backwards.

"Faster, Hardison!" she shouted as the SUV made contact for the second time.

"I can't. We're at full speed."

The SUV was closing in again. The team couldn't escape and could only wonder how it would end. They couldn't hope that the occupants of the SUV would leave them alone.

The SUV collided with them but, instead of falling back, it continued to push the van.

"What the...?" Eliot started. "Get away from them, Hardison."

"Not possible."

That was when they saw it, ahead of them. The road was making a turn. As the SVU continued to push them, the team knew that they wouldn't be able to follow the road.

Knowing that she could become a danger to her friends, Parker closed the door separating the back from the front of the van. She didn't have much time, but she grabbed the rig she was keeping in the van. She quickly secured it on the wall, and held onto it tightly.

"We're going off road," Eliot shouted, so that Parker could hear him from the back.

He looked at Hardison. The Hacker was scared, and Eliot could admit that he was feeling the same. He put his hand on his friend's arm to catch his attention just as the van left the road.

Hardison's foot was on the brakes but it wasn't working. They were still going fast through the trees. The only thing that would stop them was one of them. For the moment, Hardison was still able to avoid them, but there would come a point when he couldn't anymore.

The farther into the woods they went, the slightest their chances were to be found. Eliot knew that, and chose to take a risk.

"Hit a tree," he told Hardison.

"What? Are you crazy?"

"We have to stop the van, hit a tree. Not frontally, just hit one of them, Hardison."

"Dammit, Eliot," Hardison muttered.

He still chose to do what his friend said; Eliot must have a reason he didn't understand and he trusted him.

"Hold on, Parker," Hardison warned her, and he aimed for one of the trees ahead of them.

The van hit the tree on the side, but the impact was still strong. Hardison's head hit the window, while Eliot's met with the headboard. In the back, Parker was thrown from side to side, but she still held onto the cable. Her back made contact with one the tables taking her breath away. She fell onto the floor.

The van slowed down and then stopped. She heard groans coming from the front, and was about to get up to investigate when the back doors opened. She turned her head just in time to see two men, who she guessed to be the occupants of the van. She heard the front doors open, too; there were at least four of them. It was more than she could take, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight. And neither would Eliot.

Before she could do anything, they tasered her. As she lost consciousness, her last thought was that she had seen these men before.

 

###

 

It had still been raining when they woke up. Sophie had found a compelling way to convince Nate to stay in their hotel room for the day. The truth was he hadn't needed to be convinced, but he had been more than willing to hear – see – her arguments.

They were half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, having just finished their lunch. Sophie had her back to his chest, and he was holding her close to him with an arm wrapped around her waist. His hand was playing with the hem of the shirt – _his_ shirt – she was wearing.

"I have to admit that, had you caught me this way when you were chasing me, I might have let myself get caught."

"Maybe I should have tried it, then."

They both knew that it wasn't true; he wouldn't have tried and, even if he did, he wouldn't have succeeded in apprehending her this way. This was Sophie Devereaux they were talking about.

Her head fell back against his shoulder, her hair tickling his cheek. With his hand, he brushed it off of her shoulder. He lowered his face, kissing the exposed skin of her neck. She moaned, leaning her head to the side to give him better access. He complied by placing a kiss just behind her ear, a place that, he had quickly learnt, made her putty in his hands. He had used it to his advantage numerous times before, and he wasn’t above using it again. He was careful not to leave any marks, even though she had never complained about them.

“The rain has finally stopped,” he said, in between kisses. “What do you say about a stroll in Central Park?”

She sat up, and turned in arms, straddling his waist.

“You better be kidding me, Nathan Ford,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Because if you are serious, I swear I am going to…”

He quickly cut her off with a kiss, unwilling to hear exactly what she was threatening him with. Knowing her, her threats could range from playful to somewhat cruel. Contrary to Hardison – who would now remember never to use a pair of Sophie’s shoes for testing one of his inventions – Nate had never been on the receiver’s end of the latter, and he certainly didn’t want to start now that they were married. Besides, he really wasn’t serious with his suggestion to go outside.

He started unbuttoning her shirt, showing her what he really had in mind. He was about to push it off of her shoulders when his cell phone rang. He made no move to retrieve it; whoever it was could very well wait, his wife couldn’t.

“Nate,” Sophie whispered against his lips.

“Don’t care,” he just replied, as he finished taking off her shirt.

She didn’t object; she grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head.

The call finally went to voicemail, not that either of them really paid attention to it. But when Sophie’s cell started ringing next, they both groaned. He rested his forehead against her shoulder, cursing the caller.

“It must be important,” Sophie said, as she pushed away from him.

Nate watched her naked form walk away from the couch to go get her phone in the bedroom.

“Stop ogling me,” she said, never once turning towards him. “Hello,” she said, as she accepted the call.

“ _Hello. This is Henry, from the theatre._ ”

“Oh, hello Henry,” Sophie said, surprised at hearing his voice; she turned to Nate to see that he was as surprised as her.

“ _I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Ford, but a gentleman entered the theatre and refuses to leave. He also refused to tell me his name._ ”

“I see. Did this ‘gentleman’ say anything about me or my husband?” she asked.

“ _No. Do you want me to go ask him…_ ”

“It’s alright,” Sophie interrupted him. “We’ll be here in a few.”

“ _Good. And again, I’m sorry for calling, but I didn’t know what to do, short of calling the police._ ”

“You were right in calling us, Henry,” Sophie assured him, before hanging up.

She turned towards Nate who had raised from the couch at the mention of a gentleman. He was looking worried, and she was certain that her face was mirroring his; this was certainly unexpected.

“A gentleman?” he asked.

“Yes. He came in, refused to leave or to even give his name. Do you think it could be the person who googled me?”

“I don’t know. But it’s a strong possibility. You told Henry that we were coming?”

“Yes. I don’t know who that is, but I’d rather we confront him now instead of waiting.”

“You’re right. It’s not like we can find out who it is by staying here. Remind me to ask Hardison to come install some cameras once the renovations are done.”

“You expect this to happen again?”

“Well… Just in case,” he replied, shrugging. “We’d better get dressed and go.”

“And to say I had plans for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Since when are you making plans?” Nate asked, with a smile.

“My husband taught me to be prepared for every possibility.”

“Your husband seems to be a smart man.”

“Most of the time, he is, yes.”

“Most of the time?” Nate replied, indignantly.

“You have to admit that it took you a long time to realise what you had right in front of you,” she said, gesturing to herself. “Oh yes, I forgot. Jesuit,” she said, as if it would explain it all.

He didn’t have anything to answer to that; she was right. His past as a Jesuit seminary student had made him things in a different way as her. But he had gotten better at it, mostly thanks to her.

But why was it that she – or Maggie for that matter – always had to remind him of that part of his life? It wasn’t that interesting, and he really wasn’t that person anymore. 

Still, as he got dressed, he decided that he would have to remind Sophie again that the man she married was far from being a Jesuit.

 

###

 

He hadn’t been able to leave as early as the day before, not without arousing suspicion. So he had to wait until the early afternoon before he could go to her.

It was still raining, and he hesitated for a moment between going back to the theatre and going to her hotel. There was a chance that, given the weather, she wouldn’t step foot outside of her hotel room. But he had no idea of what room she was in. Somehow, he didn’t think she would be using the name ‘Sophie Devereaux’ in this hotel.

Sophie Devereaux was a thief, probably wanted in quite a lot of countries, if the article in the French newspaper had been right about her being a renowned art thief. She would most likely be using an alias during her stay at the hotel. And if she didn’t, the hotel room might be under her husband’s name – if the man really was her husband – and he didn’t know it.

No, the theatre was a better option at the moment.

When he arrived at the café, the waitress was the same one as the morning before, and she smiled at him upon recognition. He returned the smile and went to sit at the same table, by the window. This time, he chose not to bring his laptop. He didn’t know how long he would have to wait, but he’d rather stare at the theatre on the other side of the street the whole time. He might seem suspicious to the customers and employees of the café, but he hoped that, as long as he ordered drinks and food, the latter would refrain from saying anything.

“What can I get you, today?” the waitress asked as she stopped at his table.

“Tea, please. Earl Grey, maybe?” he asked, and she nods. “And another one of your blueberry muffins.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but those are usually the firsts to go. May I suggest today’s special, instead: the pecan pie?”

“I’ll follow your suggestion, then,” he replied with a smile.

“An Earl Grey and a pecan pie. Coming right away, sir.”

She left him alone, and he returned his thoughts, and his eyes, to the theatre.

Her dream was here, on the other side of the street. While he couldn’t understand her being a thief, he knew she belonged in a theatre. He had always heard her talk about acting with such a passion that he had never doubted that, one day, if she gave herself the chance, she would become an actress.

For a time, he thought that it had been the reason of her leaving. He had spent hours reading the entertainment pages of newspapers, both local and national, waiting to see her name. He never had. Or maybe he had, and he had never realised it because she had already changed her name. He would never know, unless he asked her.

And he would ask her. It was one of the many questions he had for her. The day before, as he waited for her, he had typed a list of questions he wanted to ask her. It took two and a half pages, and he knew he had forgotten some.

But the most important question, the one that he had typed first, was the one that had been running in his mind for years.

He wanted to know why she had left in the first place. If she could answer this one honestly, he thought he would be able to understand her choices and the life she was leading now. Something told him that it all stemmed from the moment their paths had diverged.

The waitress brought him his order, and he thanked her with a smile.

He was about to pour the tea in his cup when he saw a taxi stop before the theatre. Hope filled his heart, but he tried to quell it; he couldn’t see inside and it could be anyone but her. The chances of it being her were infinitesimal.

The back door opened and he saw him, her husband, getting out of the taxi. She followed, taking the hand he was offering her. She looked in the direction of the café, as if she felt his presence, but she couldn’t see him.

She was here, just a few feet away from him. He wanted to run out of the café and to her, but something held him back. He quickly identified it as fear. Now that she was so close, he was afraid. He had never associated this feeling with her, before. She had always inspired many feelings in him: love, pride, worry, sadness, joy, astonishment, hope, anger but never fear.

But he understood it, too. With one word, one look, she could crush all of his hopes. She could ask him to leave and never come back before he even said a word. For all of his convictions, he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand his ground if she did.

It was why he stayed seated as they entered the theatre and the door closed behind them.

 

To be continued...


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter 9_

 

They walked into the theatre to find Henry waiting for them by the door.

“He’s sitting in the front row,” he said. “I asked for his name again, but he told me to mind my own business. Do you want me to call the cops?”

“No, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Nate assured Henry.

Nate and Sophie walked down the hallway and entered the auditorium from the back. It wasn’t difficult for them to locate their guest, nor to identify him.

“What do you want, Sterling?” Nate called, as he and Sophie walked towards him. “I said one month.”

“So I can’t just come for a tour of the place?” Sterling asked, raising from his seat. “It’s a nice theatre you’ve bought yourselves. Do I want to know where the money came from? Probably not,” he answered his own question.

“You’re just here for a tour?” Sophie asked. “Somehow, I can’t believe this. You wanted us to come here. If you didn’t, you would have answered Henry’s questions.”

“Let’s say I had a reason, then, to see you somewhere private, where almost no one would know of our meeting.”

“What is your reason, then, Sterling?” Nate wanted to know.

“This,” he said, holding out a file for Nate to take. “And before you say anything else, open it and read it.”

Suspicious, Nate did as he was told. Inside the file were two sheets of papers, and nothing else. He read them, and it didn’t take long for him to understand what it meant.

“What are these?” Sophie asked, looking at the file, too.

“Our Interpol records.”

“But they’re…”

“There’s nothing on them, yes. Care to explain this?” he asked Sterling.

“You’re going to be working for me. I can’t have you running around the world, when you’re wanted in other countries. Well you more than Nate, Sophie, of course. It wouldn’t look good on me if you got arrested because of your past actions. It took some convincing, but my superiors at Interpol finally saw it my way.”

This last part told Nate all that he needed to know: Sterling had been working on this long before he even asked them to work with him. He had been certain that, once the offer was made it would be accepted, that he hadn’t even waited for them.

“Also, you can see this as a late wedding gift,” he added with a grin that Sophie would qualify as slightly evil. “But remember this: I won’t do this twice. If you go back to your lives of thievery, it will be on your record, permanently.”

“And I guess we should thank you for that?” Sophie asked, nodding to the file.

“Why wouldn’t you?”

Sophie scoffed. Sterling didn’t and couldn’t understand what it meant to her to see her records cleared. It was like her life, her actions from the moment she became a thief hadn’t existed. It was like she, as Sophie Devereaux, had never existed in the first place. It might only be a piece of paper, a record, to Sterling, but to her, it was her entire existence as the person she was now.

Nate knew what Sophie was thinking at the moment. For someone who knew her, it was written all over her face. Sterling, even though he was pretty observant, would be totally oblivious to it. He would inevitably say something that would upset her, and that was the last thing she needed right now. What she needed was some space, and he would give it to her.

“Come with me,” he told Sterling, grabbing his elbow. “You and I need to talk about a few things. And privacy is high on that list.”

“You’re one to talk about privacy,” the Interpol agent replied, still following Nate. “Who broke into my office, just two days ago?”

“Should we talk about you being in our hotel room when we arrived?” Nate returned.

 

###

 

He was still making up his mind when he saw her husband and another man leaving the theatre. She would be alone inside, right now. He could go in and talk to her. No one would be here to stop him. No one, but himself.

He was the only one standing in his way, at the moment. It was time it stopped, he decided. His tea and pie left untouched, he got up and put money on the table. He left the café under the surprised eyes of the waitress, and crossed the street.

He could see her husband still walking away from the theatre with the other man. He was glad that he wouldn’t be here. He needed her to be alone; he didn’t want another man to come between them.

The door of the theatre offered no resistance. It was unlocked, and opened as he pull on the handle. He worried for a second that the old man would be here, and would recognize him from a couple of days ago. But he saw no one in the hallway leading away from the door. The theatre looked empty; he couldn’t hear a sound. If there was anyone else but her inside, they were staying silent.

He wasn’t sure where to go, or even where she was. He decided to follow the hallway and see where it would lead him. When he came to a door marked as auditorium, he stopped. He felt, no, he knew that she was on the other side. This was where she would be, because it was where he had imagined her to be during all those years.

He put his hand on the handle and stopped again. He thought back to the last time he saw her. Not minutes ago, when she entered this theatre, but the last time he saw her as the woman he knew all those years ago.

If he thought that the internet search had changed everything, he knew for sure that, the moment he entered the auditorium and saw her would be a defining one in their new relationship, whatever it ended up being.

But now that he was here, he couldn’t go back, of that he was quite certain. He pushed the door open, and he saw her, standing with her back to him at the bottom of the stairs.

She turned around and he took a deep breath. That was it.

 

###

 

Sophie couldn’t help but smile as she heard Nate and Sterling bickering as they left the auditorium. She knew what Nate was doing, and she was more than grateful to him for that.

She did need some time alone. She also needed to talk to Nate, but she needed time to think about it on her own. It felt weird to know that she wouldn’t need aliases to travel anymore. No one would be looking for her, anymore, because, to them, she would have never committed a crime.

Sophie Devereaux would just be a story in the end. A story told in criminal and law enforcement worlds. She wouldn’t be a woman, but a legend. As she thought about it, she guessed she could live with being known as a legend from now on.

She looked at the stage, plunged in the shadows. This was her life now. Like she told Nate, this was where she belonged. Maybe Sterling had done her a favour, in the end; now, nothing would come in between her and the theatre. She would never tell him that, though. His ego was big enough as it was. What Maggie could see in him, Sophie really didn’t know.

When she heard the door open behind her, she thought that it was Nate coming back. She turned around; the man she faced wasn’t Nate, but it wasn’t a stranger either.

She gasped as she recognized him. Her lips formed his name, but no sound came out. She saw him smile at her, but she was still too shocked by his sudden appearance to return it. He walked down the stairs and towards her. She couldn’t move. She wanted to run away, but her feet were rooted to the spot. She couldn’t do anything but look at him.

He had changed quite a lot since the last time she saw him. It had been expected, but she had never allowed herself to think about him until this day. She had kept the past firmly in the past; this part of her life was so far from who she was right now.

He stopped a few feet away from her. She could see tears in his eyes, and she felt her own tears welling up. She held them back; she didn’t want him to see her cry, not now.

When she felt like she could finally trust her voice, she opened her mouth to speak.

“How can you be here?” she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

He couldn’t find the words to answer. He just shook his head, and took a step closer. His arms wrapped around her, holding her close.

Her own arms wrapped around his shoulders. She buried her face in her neck, breathing him in. His scent filled her nostrils, taking her back to the last time she had been in his arms.

It had taken more than two decades, but she was finally hugging her brother again.

 

###

 

Nate led Sterling outside of the theatre and down the street.

“Are you serious about this?” he asked about the file he was still holding in his hands.

“You know me enough not to ask this, Nate.”

“Excuse me if I find this a little unbelievable. You’ve spent years chasing us, and now, you offer us this?”

“Well, you weren’t useful to me, then. But you are, now.”

“What about Parker, Hardison and Eliot?” Nate asked.

“They’re not reformed as far as I know. It was hard enough to get for the two of you. Have you see the length of Sophie’s records?”

“Should I remind you that I chased her during some of these cases?”

“And yet, you never caught her. One must wonder if you really put your heart in it.”

“And you’ll be left to wonder,” Nate replied, unwilling to answer this loaded question. “Look, Sterling, it’s not that we don’t appreciate it, but you can understand that it came as a surprise for us. Actually, you planned for it to work this way, didn’t you?”

“Where would be the fun, if I didn’t?” Sterling replied.

“I need to know something else. You weren’t having us followed, when we arrived, were you?”

“No. I was waiting for you in your room. Why would I have you followed?”

“That’s what I thought,” Nate only said, before falling silent.

“What’s going on, Nate?” Sterling asked, feeling that there was something going on he wasn’t aware of.

“When we arrived at the hotel, Sophie felt like we were being watched. When we saw you in the room, we thought that it had been one of your men, making sure we wouldn’t change hotel at the last minute. But a couple of days ago, someone googled Sophie’s name. Hardison had set up an alert for when something like this happens. He tracked the search to the New York Public Library. By the time Sophie and I got there, whoever it was had already been long gone.”

“So you have no idea who it is. I can assure you that it wasn’t me or anyone else at Interpol. I would know about that.”

“I need to find who that is, Sterling, before they come for Sophie.”

“Can’t Hardison help you?” Sterling asked, knowing how smart the Hacker could be.

“He has done all he could for the moment. Unless we find a new lead, he can’t help us.”

“Well, you’ll find one, that’s what you do. Find leads where no one else does.”

“Is that a compliment?” Nate asked, and Sterling just shrugged in answer.

“Keep me posted on this, though.”

“Are you worried about us?”

“You’re assets to me, after everything that I’ve done,” he said, gesturing to the file, “I don’t want this to go to waste.”

“Right.”

They had reached the end of the block, and Nate decided that it was time to go back to Sophie. Once she came to terms with what Sterling’s actions meant, she would need someone to talk to, and he needed to be there for her.

Just as he was about to part ways with Sterling, Nate’s cell phone rang. The call wasn’t coming from a number he knew. Puzzled, he accepted the call.

“Hello?”

“ _Hello, Nate,_ ” said the voice on the other end.

Sterling saw the moment Nate’s face changed. He understood that, whoever that was, it couldn’t be good.

It had been a long while, but Nate would recognize this voice anywhere. It was the voice that had changed his life forever, years ago. A voice that had haunted his dreams for years. A voice he had thought he would never hear again.

Nate locked eyes with Sterling as he spoke.

“Ian.”

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> Rest assured, this is just the end for now. A sequel will come, as soon as I have time to write it. For the moment, though, my Muse is tugging me towards other fics and fandoms. Until next time!


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